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Sabbatical

2007-06-04T15:37:00.000-04:00

So I have been quite sporadic lately (both in terms of frequency and content) with this blog. I guess it has to do with ambivalence towards it and also a feeling that it is no longer as enjoyable as it once was.

Perhaps in this time of change for me, this is not the period for self-reflextion. And so I leave you at this time. Don't know if this will be forever or if I may start a new blog anew. But I feel that the time has past for this forum at this point in my life.

All the best and thanks for all of your comments and support.

Tour of London

2007-06-04T02:15:00.000-04:00

Had an incredibly busy weekend as my Mom was in town. On Friday after work we were going to head down to West Hampstead to have a bite to eat after she finished reading The Da Vinci Code (yes, she is one of the few who had read it or seen the movie). She had started it that morning and like many others couldn't put it down until she was done.

We ended up going nowhere as my Landlord and Landlady who live upstairs knocked on the door asking if we would like to join them for some nibbles and wine. Ah…YES. We ended up sitting around on the patio for hours chatting and drinking.

Was wonderful to get to know them.

Got up around 8 the next morning. I had planned to take my Mom on some belated Mother's Day events. However as my mom was getting ready, I started to smell some weird smoke. She had plugged her curling iron into what she thought was a step down adapter but was really only an adapter for appliances (such as computers) that don't need a current conversion. Well, the iron was a-melting.

And so I was off to find a new one. The only one I could find was £20 (which seems like a lot for a curling iron). And then I ran home. It was a little after 10 and we had to be at the London Eye for our scheduled trip at 11:30. I had booked a trip that included a tour guide that would explain everything since I know nothing.

We sprinted towards the bus stop when Mom stopped and wondered, "Did I unplug the curling iron?" I would have laughed if I wasn't crying. Well, it was unplugged and we were off again.

We made it to the Eye with not a moment to spare. But my Mom looked terrified. I didn't think the height would bother her. And luckily when we went up it didn't. It really was a great tour. Here is a picture of what the Eye looks like:

And this is what each Eye-Pod is like:

And then the view of the Houses of Parliament from on High:

After that we went to the Star Wars exhibit which has a bunch of original props, models, costumes, drawings etc. Mom has always loved Star Wars so this was a real treat.

We went to Leicester Square after to buy some theatre tickets as she really wanted to see the Mousetrap. She adores Agatha Christie and the chance to she her play where it has been running for 55 years (!) was too much to give up.

But before the play it was off to Hampstead Heath for a walk around the wonderfully peaceful (however cluttered with people) park.

And so, after the play (which was quite entertaining) Saturday was finally over and I was exhausted.

On to Sunday where the day started early again going to the medieval castle known as the Tower of London. When I was a kid I thought the Tower of London meant that it was a huge tower where people were imprisoned -but it isn't really that at all.

Then we walked across picturesque Tower Bridge to the south bank where we proceeded to walk to the Houses of Parliament. It was a beautiful sunny day and we ended up walking, according to Mom's pedometer, 17000 steps! Exhausted after all of this sight-seeing it was off to an early dinner at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in West Hampstead for an absolutely miraculously delicious avacodo bacon burger.

And then we collapsed in front of the TV at home.

Wow, just a crazy weekend.

Big Sister

2007-05-31T06:40:00.000-04:00

So the only reason that I would have watched the Uk version of Big Brother was if there happend to by some hot guys who frequently felt that it was too hot to wear a shirt/pants/clothing.

So imagine my disappointment (or relief at not having to watch) when I found out this morning that there are no men in the house at all.

While this may be both sexist and shallow - I don't see the point of that show unless you can perve a bit.

Chaperoned

2007-05-29T12:09:00.001-04:00

So my last week was just go-Go-GO.

Started off the week meeting up with CtGuy for drinks in the city. He is a charming fella' and we passed an interesting evening near his gym having a few drinks near the river. The evening was especially interesting in seeing his interaction with a few of his office mates.

One of them mentioned that they sometimes play a game where each of these straight guys will see how gay they can go with each other before the other one gives out. Ah the remnants of British all-boys boarding schools!

Had lunch with Chad, a friend from Sydney who now works for a bank in Canary Wharf. Chad has always been a wild man and now is no different. Still a crazy guy who is out somewhere in Vauxhall every weekend. How he manages to keep going is beyond my abilities.

Friday, I was lucky enough to have seen the new musical called the "Drowsy Chaperone" at the Novello with tickets given to me by Czech Out who was still on his honeymoon in Réunion. Lucky me!

Stuart and I laughed and laughed at this very camp (even for a musical), very gay (even for a musical), romp (even for…you get the idea) through a fake 1920s musical with the darling Elaine Page as a rarely sober but always witty Chaperone at a wedding. My favourite line has to be during a press conference held by a broadway star just before her wedding when this actress asks if anyone else has any questions.

The Chaperone raises her hand.

"Yes?"

The Chaperone slurs out, "Why would anyone put an olive in a Gimlet?"

After the show Stuart and I went to have a drink. Past by the Box, where I have yet to go, but there were so many people we decided not to give it a chance. (Well, perhaps there wasn't too many people, but instead the people there had such enormous necks from all the roids that fewer of them could actually fit side by side). We went down to Soho instead where we had one drink outside the Compton (filled with the well-past-their-prime) and another at Rupert Street (filled with the just-past-their-prime…of which I must claim (or at least accept begrudgingly, membership) where we watched the pre-pubescent and the near-decrepit wait anxious for a glance (and a grope) of Harry Potter.

The weekend otherwise past by easily with more furniture shopping and general relaxing. Then on Monday in the midst of a terrible 5 C May day, I decided that I needed some porn. Bud asked why and I had to admit that my imagination just wasn't cutting it anymore. Who wants to think of their own fantasy when one can be supplied? And I have to admit that today I am a bit more relaxed.

Ah…only 25 days to go until he arrives.

The Markers

2007-05-21T04:10:00.001-04:00

So the past week was one of the hardest I have ever had at work. All-nighters, late nights, changes in structure, endless meetings, conference calls and drafts. On Tuesday though, we thought the deal was dead. So I took the evening off and went to the Inter-banks drinks.

Inter-banks drinks is a monthly drink event in the City for gay banking professionals. When I got there I was hit by the normal problem whenever you move to a new city. Everyone there seemed to be in groups of four or more, so breaking in takes a bit of work. And unfortunately, the other gay banker that I know cancelled on me at the last minute. But sometimes you just have to plunge in.

Luckily,

Gay Banker

was there, so there was at least one friendly face. And then I ran into a guy who had given a seminar recently at a large investment bank on gay issues. So at least I didn't need to pity poor old me on my own.

The deal went back into swing Wednesday morning and didn't die until Thursday late evening. But it looks gone now.

And so the weekend arrived and my friend Scott arrived from Afghanistan joined by his girlfriend from Germany. Scott and I went to law school together and he has been working for the UN in Afghanistan for the past 3 or 4 years. Not my choice of local, but the money is good and he seems to (surprisingly) make a good human rights officer.

We spent the day on a shopping tour of London. Scott is one of those strange straight men that love to buy clothes. So every time that he comes to London, its off to Saville Row to have something tailored (although why he needs anything like that in Afghanistan is beyond me), and also purchased an umbrella from some place off Shaftesbury Avenue for £160, shave balm and soap for £80 before heading off to have his previously custom made shoes (a meager £1000) tightened. I was fairly disgusted.

But its his money - his choice.

We stopped at a great cheese shop on Jermyn street and then headed off to Kensington Gardens for a little cheese and champagne before dinner. A cocktail at some pathetically pretentious place in Notting Hill called Lonsdale, I think was followed by dinner at the Notting Hill Grill. Terrible. I had been warned about British food but I was appalled at the steak I had. Stringy and tough. One thing about Montreal is that despite all of my complaints about living there the food is among the best I have ever had and at about a quarter of the cost of this Grill in the Hill.

The next day I met up with Stuart and Sean for a bite to eat in West Hampstead. On the way back to my place we passed a cemetery on Fortune Green. We decided to go for a walk through. Not the oldest cemetery ever with tombs from the early 1800s to now, I was struck by how the ravages of time and weather had slowly stripped away all of the markings off so many of the older tombstones. Many were crumbling and some had tumbled either face first or flat on their backs.

And I thought to myself that these markers that we place in an attempt to keep those who have passed alive also will eventually die. There are so many there who are remembered by none including even that post that was to remember them for always.

And there are so few in the world whose lives touch enough people on a grand enough scale to be remembered for long after they have past. And I know that I shall not be one of those. I neither crave that nor seek it. But I wondered, as I wandered through the remnants of the people who had gone before me, did it really matter? And I looked over at Stuart and thought of how much he had influenced my life. And I thought of Bud, and how much this time apart was rendering my soul into shards, and I realized that all that truly mattered was being around those I love. Those wonder people who make me something more than I am on my own. What is written on that stone can never encompass what I truly am - because I am more than just the sum of these body parts. I am made of these people who surround me. And I am all the more thankful for it.

First Few Weeks

2007-05-16T04:06:00.000-04:00

Okay, yes its true, I have been delinquent here since my arrival in London. However, this has not been due to any slacker qualities that I may have but solely due to the fact that I have not yet had an internet connection at my home. And no television either! Scary dark world that I am living in.

London has been pretty amazing so far. So good to have my old friend Stuart back in my life (have already spent far too many nights sleeping on his sofa after finding myself to inebriated to get back home. Work is interesting and intense but all in all just like working anywhere else. Although having a gym and a pool at the office is a nice perk.

Found a place to live in Hampstead. While it is more than I wanted to spend, I had a terrible time finding anywhere that would let me have dogs. Speaking of dogs, I do so terribly miss my two puppies! It sucks. I often find them terribly annoying but I do so love them.

But of course, I miss Bud most of all. It has now been over a month since I last saw him and less than 6 weeks to go before he is here. I can hardly wait. Being apart is truly horrific. I sleep terribly and rarely want to do much without him. Love fool that I am - its nice that I still feel this way after almost five years.

Went off to Prague last weekend with work. Had a great time - it’s a really beautiful city. The men, as I said to Bud, were all these sexy east-European looking guys (to which bud, rather wisely, stated, that's a bit redundant, of course they look east-European). The people were all very friendly and I hope to make it back again soon.

A friend working in Afghanistan arrives in town on Friday for a bit of relaxation. Apparently we'll be having an afternoon of champagne and cheese. La vie francaise à Londres.

One thing that I find very strange here is how so many people at work don't say hello to each other. you walk past one another and not a word is said - then when I say hello a look of panicked shock washes over their faces. Bizarre - or maybe just British

I have arrived!

2007-04-13T03:00:00.000-04:00

Arrived in London yesterday.

Well - I guess it is real now.

And I am already missing my Bud (and of course, the puppies). Its strange that until now, this move didn't quite seem to be real. But now that I am on English soil with all the clothes I own, there is no denying it.

And it is all a bit scary. In a good way. It is exciting to move to a new place, but I notice that this time is different. Whereas when I was a younger man in a new place it was all thrilling, in my advanced age of my earlyish 30s, there is more worry.

I worry about what the job will be like, how I can live without Bud for 80 days, how easily will it be to meet friends, will I meet any friends on that "outstanding-lifelong" level?

And so today I am off with my estate agent looking for a place to live.

Wish me luck

Closer

2007-04-03T13:10:00.000-04:00

So I am getting very nervous.

Work finishes up for me on Thursday and then I fly out on the 11th. I must admit that the time has flown by. But now I am worried about the move.

Its not like I have never moved to another city/country before, but I did it when I was a bit younger. And while I do know a few people in London already, I have to get prepared to go on a search for new friends. Now, most people don’t believe me when I say that I am shy, but this is only because my shield against my shyness can sometimes be an outwardly outgoing personality. But I nevertheless can find it difficult to meet new people.

And so I have resolved to be extremely social and to avoid these problems if possible. I have been looking into various types of groups in London that I can get involved in to meet people and am hopeful that these will help. Now of course, my job will keep me busy, but I know that I need to get that work/life balance down.

Don't know if I will post again before I leave but will write soon to talk about my new fabulous! life in London

Get Clubbed

2007-03-30T13:53:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reported today about people who have terribly decorated apartments and cannot get people to date them because of it.

This terribly deluded man above has a stuffed baby seal (I shit you not) and will not get rid of it even though it puts many (MANY!?! - some don't mind - I'm frightened to think of what they are like) of them off.

What's even scarier is that this man writes a dating advice column for match.com.

Once again proving the point that anything you read on the internet is suspect.

Almost There

2007-03-29T08:59:00.000-04:00

So it is less than two weeks before I am off for London. As it gets closer and closer, I get more and more nervous. Not only is it the excitement of moving to a new city (and London at that), but also that Bud and I have to spend so much time (once again) apart.

Luckily Bud has a large credit with Air Canada so that in May I will fly back for the weekend to see him (and the dogs of course). But time apart is never fun. It will undoubtedly be far easier for me. A new city to explore and new people to meet can make time fly by. I have to find a place to live, buy stuff for it and get settled.

While I am doing this, Bud will be here in Montreal with the dogs, counting days. He is not looking forward to it. But we have little choice in the matter. We have survived through a number of times apart due to our different citizenship, but they are never simple. Part of it stems from the fact that I hate talking on the phone – but when that is all we will have, its got to be done.

Thankfully we don’t have any birthdays, anniversaries or other momentous occasions that we will be separated. And I am positive that our friends here will keep him occupied. But for all the joy of going to England, the tinge of sadness due to our separation colours the excitement.

But at least I know that I truly love him. When I was apart from my last bf I had before Bud when I went on an exchange to Sydney, I was quite happy to get away. I knew then that the relationship had some problems. But with Bud it is so different. Any long-time reader of this blog will be aware of the number of problems that we have had. But it has been that solid rock of the state of matrimony that has gotten us through the hard times. Without it, it could have been so easy to walk away when times were tough. But instead, it focused me more on the long term.

And of course, still being madly in love with him doesn’t hurt.

Disturbing

2007-03-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

So I found this shirt by accident being sold on Amazon.com. Strange, strange, strange

Sifting

2007-03-19T13:44:00.001-04:00

So I went through the joys of sifting though all the crap that I have accumulated over the past few years in Montreal in anticipation of my move to London. The one good thing about having moved to different cities and countries over the past ten years is that I have gone through this exercise enough times to not have a hell of a lot left over as trinkets of days gone by.

But it is nevertheless an interesting time to re-read certain letters from Bud from the early days, look over a story I wrote when I have ten, or look at pictures of a person that I know longer recognize but know is me.

And of course it takes me back along that path that has brought me to where I am today. And each of these things are place markers indicating steps I trod long ago and decisions made many days in the past. And with each culling there is a separation from the past – a removal of one more pop-up on the video of my life.

Puppies

2007-03-14T11:22:00.000-04:00

Of course,

I forgot to post some pics of the puppies all grown up!

Back and Forth

2007-03-14T11:08:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been quite a long time since I wrote much of anything on this blog. Like anything, sometimes you need a little vacation. Much has been going on in my life though in the meantime.

I have given notice to my current employer. They have been very understanding and quite professional. I can work for as long as I want without a problem. I will work until Good Friday and then have a week before I fly off to London.

Of course, since people know that I am leaving, I haven’t been getting a whole lot of work lately. Not that I am complaining. And then a few weeks after I gave notice, another lawyer a couple years senior than me announced he was moving to New York and then on Monday another lawyer announced that he was going to the same firm as me in London!

The preparations for the trip have been going well. Have my work permit and my visa. Bud, as my partner, got a work permit as well where he can work at any job. Which works out pretty well for us. The dogs need a passport of all things and it will not be cheap to ship them – but that’s the cost of children I guess.

We went to see Scissor Sistors the other night. They aren’t as popular here as in the UK so we actually saw them perform at a bar! Great small venue for a fantastic show.

I am getting crazy excited about the move – need a change of pace and am thrilled to see what London brings me.

Out of Touch

2007-02-05T16:22:00.000-05:00

As is probably pretty obvious, I am taking a break from blogging for the time being.

Waiting to move to London in a couple of months and everything else justs seem to be a transition to that date.

Uk Advice

2007-01-06T06:39:00.000-05:00

Just to update you on the puppies, they are all doing well (as is their mother) and are growing exponentially!

In a response to a comment posted recently, I am not sure yet where I will be living in London. And so I am asking any UK readers out there to give me some suggested locations.

I want to live in either Zone 1 or Zone 2. And since we have dogs, I am looking to rent a house with a yard and preferably some park space. I doubt that I will have a car, so I will also need to live in a neighbourhood that has decent grocery store and other amenities at least sort of nearby. I also want a fairly safe neighbourhood.

Any suggestions?

New Years Miracle

2007-01-03T18:19:00.000-05:00

Our little girl rung in the new year with puppies early on the morning of New Year's Day.

This was Minge’s first litter. Jack Russell’s normally only have 4 puppies per litter and the first litter only has 2 or 3 typically. Minge was quite big at this time, so Bud thought she would have 3.

At noon on New Year’s Eve, we took Minge’s temperature. When a dog is going to give birth within the following 12 hours, her temperature will drop by 2 degrees. Well, the first thought that came into Bud and my heads was, “What a bitch!” We hadn’t done anything in the longest time, but on New Year’s Eve we had planned to go to a friend’s house for dinner.

We decided to go in shifts – me for cocktails and entrée, and Bud for the main course.

But of course, Minge was not keeping to schedule. After spending the entire days lying down, by 10 pm that night you could see the muscles along her back and legs contract and then she would pant. The poor girl cried as her body was doing things to her that she didn’t quite understand.

And so Bud and I sat up with her as for hours she was not having the best new year possible. Around 3 in the morning, Bud noticed that she was getting red splotches on her face and back. As we picked her up we saw them all over her body and her nipples had turned glassy and hard.

Panicked we called the emergency vet (only one open on New Year’s Eve in the entire city) and they told us to get her there immediately as she was either having an allergic reaction or something was wrong with the pregnancy.

We rushed there and by the time we got there all of them were gone. Since there really wasn’t anything new that could have caused this reaction, it was most likely a stressed out case of hives. She had been basically in labour for 15 hours (which in dog years is about 4 and a half days!).

We got her home and she stopped all muscle contracting and panting and went to sleep.

Perhaps she was just exhausted, but as we were waiting in vain to see any sign of her giving birth, Bud suddenly noticed that a puppy was coming out. We helped Minge stand up and saw the head crown. With a terrible yelp, out can the puppy and the placenta.

Puppies, unlike humans, are born in a sac that must be broken open. Minge had no idea (not unsurprisingly) what to do, so for the first two that came out Bud and I cut the cords and tied off the ends with dental floss. We then put the puppies back near her.

Well, she was having none of that. She didn’t like them at all! I had to hold her down while Bud opened the puppies’ mouth and attached them to her nipples. They started the sucking and Minge calmed down as her hormones began.

Then out came the third one and she figured out what to do. She bit off the umbilical cord and swallowed down the placenta.

About 45 minutes later the last one came. The last one usually comes quite a bit later than the one right before it. They were all very cute and adorably. Bud and I stared at them for about half and hour as they nursed away. Minge was completely exhausted and couldn’t barely move.

I went off to buy us some much needed coffee. When I go back I looked in the whelping box located right beside Bud and saw that Minge had given birth to two more (holy shit – SIX OF THEM) while I was gone. She was so tired that she couldn’t deal with them, so they were both in their sacs still on the blanket.

Bud and I in total terror (of bring completely deadbeat negligent daddies) rushed to open the sacs. The last one was fine because when we saw it the placenta wasn’t yet out of Minge, so he had just been born, but the fifth was not so lucky. She had been stuck in her sac for a few minutes at least.

Frantically we opened her up.

Not breathing.

Not moving.

And worse, her face was blue.

Blue started giving the puppy mouth to mouth (I shit you not) and gently rubbing her chest. He was utterly devastated that we had allowed this to happen. He would blow into her mouth and the puppy would let out a little gasp. Then it started to gasp for breath every few seconds and it stopped being blue. And Bud could feel the heartbeat.

But it was not moving at all.

It looked as if we had caught it in time to start breathing automatically, but there was no function at all.

Five minutes go by and Bud is still trying to revive her and I can see the pain welling up in his soul. And I can see what the future will bring for this little girl. I go to the bathroom and fill up the sink.

Bud is sitting on a chair still trying to get her to move. I suggest that perhaps she is brain dead and that we were too late. But he will hear none of it, “I have to give it more time.” And then little Angus, the baby’s father comes over. He has been an angel in his behaviour all day – leaving Minge to her business and the puppies alone.

But he sees his daughter in distress. And I wonder if he knows that she is his. He stands on his back legs and rests his front paws on Bud, leans in towards his baby girl in trouble and begins to lick her. Licks her over and over; goes into her mouth and licks out any fluid there.

And then suddenly, after fifteen minutes since we found her trapped in the sac that kept her alive for two months, her legs begin to move. She starts bouncing around in Bud’s hands. Joyful Day. My angel and our puppy angel kept her with us.

Bud brought her to her mother’s nipples and the sheer ecstasy that enveloped my body as she began to suckle with enthusiasm is like nothing I have ever felt before.

This was the first time that I witnessed something being born. It was also a moment where I got to truly appreciate Bud’s character and the glory that his optimism can reap in this world.

And so, we spent the day watching these new additions to our life enjoy the attention of a loving mother. She is now obsessed with being a great mom to these kids. We have to fore her to leave the box to go to the bathroom or eat and then she bolts full speed back to take care of her children.

So we have four new girls in the house and two boys.

This was a marvelous way to begin the new year and I couldn’t be happier.

Merry Chirstmas

2006-12-22T07:36:00.000-05:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas.

When I was in London, one of the firms told me that there was a move there to not put up Christmas decorations in the office in order not to offend other people. The person told me this found it rather comical that this was going on inLondon while when she had recently been in Dubai Christmas decorations were everywhere.

While I can understand religious tolerance, is there any holiday that is basically devoid of religious sentiment like Christmas is. Yes, it began as a religious observance but it is pretty secular nowadays.

And many of hte things that we celebrate were once religious in nature but have been absorbed into our culture. Think of Hallowe'en's pagan origins or Valentine's Day as a catholic event.

If we can no longer think of spreading good cheer because we think this could offend someone, there is something truly wrong here.

Wicked

2006-12-19T17:42:00.000-05:00

Sorry, I have been just absolutely crazy at work since returning from London. Everyone wants to get everything done before the end of the year.

Work-wise London was very successful – think I have made my decision.

Loved London. Didn’t have lots of time to look around, but glanced by some of the sights and managed to go see the play “Wicked”. I read the book a number of years ago (it’s the tale of the Wizard of Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West’s point of view) and the play was even better. Outstanding singing and mesmerizing staging. A real treat.

Had Stuart’s 30th birthday on Saturday with a dinner at his place for 25 people. Had far too much champagne which made the flight home on Sunday quite deadly.

UK Bound

2006-12-12T16:57:00.000-05:00

SO I am off to London for a few days tomorrow. Meeting up with places that have offered me a job already and interviewing with others. Love having choices.

And then luckily it is Stuart's 30th birthday on Saturday night. Timing worked out well.

Will report on my return.

But I am very excited as I have never been to London before. Hope I like it enough to move.

Bud is staying at home with our very pregnant Jack Russell. She has gotten absolutely huge and her nipples are big enough to dial a phone (think Lisa Bonet in "Angel Heart")!

On a lighter note...

2006-12-06T14:45:00.000-05:00

TOP 10 CHRISTMAS CAROLS FOR THE DISTURBED

1. Schizophrenia -- Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder --- We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia --- I Think I'll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic --- Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic -- Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets> and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees> and.....

6. Paranoid --- Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder --- Thoughts of Roasting on anOpen> Fire

8. Personality Disorder --- You Better Watch Out, I'm Gonna Cry, I'm> Gonna Pout, Maybe I'll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder --- Silent night, Holy oooh look atthe> Froggy - can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder --- Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,> Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,> Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,> Jingle Bells, JingleBells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,> Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells,> Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

...

2006-12-06T09:26:00.000-05:00

It was seventeen years ago today that a man walked into a college in Montreal with guns in tow, separated the men and the women and proceeded to murder 14 women and injuring numerous others while yelling “I hate feminists.”

And then, like the dog he was, this man shot himself.

The anniversary of this event is always hard – especially in this city where the blood was shed.

And it serves to remind me of the devastating destructive power of hate. Hate not just in its form of slaughter but in its every expression. And perhaps it is appropriate that today the Canadian conservatives in power are trying to take away gay marriage. Hate whether exercised through violence or through politics is still the scourge that we seem to never be able to defeat.

Salt

2006-12-05T08:42:00.000-05:00

For those of you who happen to not live in a frozen wasteland that can be Canada, you may not know about the absolutely terrible practice of battling the freeze on streets and sidewalks.

Out here in Eastern Canada, the people in power seem obsessed about spreading salt all over every piece of horizontal space imaginable. The thing is salt reduces the freezing point of water so that even if it is below zero, some of the snow and ice will melt.

While this undoubtedly makes everything much less slippery, it is devastating on my dogs. The poor little guys get salt rocks trapped in their paws, which then burns the hell out of their feet. Watching them squeal in adject pain and then hobble around trying not to touch the ground is horendous.

For a little easier time for us, we put these animals in pain. Sounds very human doesn't it?

Happy b-day to Blog

2006-11-24T11:25:00.001-05:00

Once again I have hit a milestone with this blog. It was one year ago today that I posted my first entry. Over the course of the year, this blog has changed from posting numerous pictures of sexy men and general ramblings almost every day, to being a little more sporadic in my writing.

I have found that when I post something, it is best if I have something to say. But I have also found that it has not always been easy to write down what I am feeling.

If you are a regular reader you will know that this past year has brought some big difficulties in my life. And publicly divulging them on this post has been cathartic and painful at the same time. While I do approach this as a personal diary for the most part, that comment button is not always easy to click.

I live within my own bubble in my head and having readers share their perception of either my actions or my thoughts has pierced through that self-image on numerous occasions. And no matter how difficult it can be, it is always beneficial to see how others perceive you.

But lately I haven’t been posting much about how my life is going, or about how my relationship with Bud is. It is in that great holding pattern known as routine at the moment. I get up, work out, work, get home, eat, watch tv, play with the dogs. Rinse and repeat.

But there is nothing wrong with this at the moment. I am just in a bit of a rut looking for that next phase in my life. And I may have found it. Have been offered a job in the faraway land of my ancestors – jolly ole England.

So it looks as if the new year will be bringing a new country and a new experience. And hopefully a new routine that is not routine at all.

The Vote

2006-11-22T10:09:00.000-05:00

“A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.” - Bill Vaughan

This quote sums up a pressing argument that Bud and I have been having lately. You see, in Australia, people MUST vote. If you don’t vote, you are fined. Of course, you have register the first time, but every single election, local – state – federal, thereafter, if you don’t vote, a ticket comes in the mail.

Here in Canada, as I the US, you vote if you want to.

Now I have not always voted. City elections almost never get me out, and often for provincial or federal elections, it really depends on where I am living. At present I live in a riding that is soundly represented by the leader of the Quebec separatist party. My vote won’t change it.

Now, this doesn’t mean that I won’t vote, but I can be a bit lazy about it.

And I argue with Bud over being forced to vote. If I don’t want to vote, I shouldn’t have to.

Now Bud does not counter with the argument that it is our duty to vote or anything like that, but he makes the worthwhile point that if everyone is forced to vote then you can actually say that the results truly indicate what the “people” want or believe. If you have an election where less than 50% of the population vote, any majority in the results will not be a majority in reality.

And he makes a good point. But I am nonetheless conflicted between my freedom to not do something if I choose and the ability to truly have a mandated government.

Less Than a Year Away

2006-11-14T13:17:00.000-05:00

Can't Wait

One of my all-time favourite shows - here's hoping it rocks

Bastard

2006-11-09T08:41:00.000-05:00

My Mom called me last night.

Now this is not at the present time unusual. Or I should say this is not unusual ever - she has always called. The only thing that ever has been different has been the content of those conversations. But this one was even different.

"I just wanted to say thank you," she said. "I got a pamphlet in the mail about spousal abuse and it made me think of you. And I just wanted to thank you for getting me to leave Harry."

Many years ago my mother and I were very close. Then in 1996 I told her that I was gay and everything changed. She was never mean to me, never stopped speaking to me or anything like that. But it all changed.

She felt like she didn't recognize me.

And so it continued for many many years.

And then one day two years ago my mom called me just to say hello. It soon turned to where she began to tell me about her life with her boyfriend Harry.

Since we hadn't really talked about anything substantial for so long this was odd.

And terrifying.

My mom told me a horrifying tale of a man that had been mentally abusing her for years. And she didn't even realize just how truly horrid this man was.

My brother and sister had told me that they didn't like him but in my relationship with my mother at the time I, to my shame, didn't really listen. I don't want to go into the details but the level of manipulation and degradation traumatized me.

My mom was always searching for love and held a romantic view of the world.
And she always wants to believe the best in people. But this has got her stuck in a situation where she felt that it was her last chance at love and in some way she felt that what Harry was putting her through wasn’t as bad as it seemed

"You have to leave," I told her.

"I know... I know" she said.

Harry was out of town for a few days. So I said, "No I mean now. Is Gary (my brother) in town?"

"Yes."

"I'm calling him. You can stay with him."

"..OK..."

"Do you know someone with a truck?"

She did.

"Look if you are telling me about all this you must want me to do something about this. Its time to leave. Pack whatever you need to tonight, I'll call Gary and you leave now. Not later. Now. And you get your stuff later. But its time to leave."

And she left and never looked back.

Of course, comically, when I called my sister to tell her what was going on she said, "I tell her to leave him every day and, of course, you tell her once and she leaves.". Colleen was crying with joy.

And yes, it was hard for my mother at the beginning but she is truly happy now. And so we are back to last night.

"I just needed to thank you for getting me to leave."

"It wasn't me," I told her, "yes I may have instigated it, but YOU made the decision. YOU decided to leave. You have to give yourself some credit for what you did. My words didn't get you out. You did it."

And the truly beautiful thing is that out of all that pain my Mom and I are close once again. And she is with a man that treats her the way a woman, a human, should be treated.

But the hard part was last night when my Mom said "..in the 6 and a half years that Harry and I were together...".

6 and a half years!?!

Was it really that long that my Mom was in pain and I refused to acknowledge it because she didn't enthusiastically embrace my homosexuality? Was I really that blind?

Or that selfish?

And now everything is different. Not only is she happy but we are happy. She sends Bud birthday cards and wishes us a happy anniversary. I have my Mom back, but the price she paid is far too high.

Miracle Food

2006-11-03T16:38:00.000-05:00

Can anyone think of any food/meal (other than desserts) that would be ruined by adding bacon?

Too Early

2006-10-31T08:13:00.000-05:00

Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas.

But on the way to work yesterday (October 30!), I noticed that a large department store in Montreal already had Christmas displays up in their windows.

Now it used to be that people would at least wait until after Halloween. Do we really need two months of Christmas - let alone two months of Christmas music....well, except for the Boney M Christmas album... ahhhh ....Disco Xmas

Frayed

2006-10-29T09:13:00.000-05:00

The first memory that I have is from when I was about three or four years old. While I do not have many memories of much before I was twelve, for as long as I can remember, this has been my earliest memory.

It is only a snapshot really. I do not remember the context or anything that occurred before or after. My older brother and I are in our first home and are going down the stair to the basement. I don’t recall the house at all, but I remember the stairs. They were the type of stairs that do not have a back to them. All I remember was the fear that someone (or something) was going to grab my ankles though the empty space behind the stairs.

What bothers me about this memory is that it really is a memory of an emotion: fear. And I wonder just how much of my life has been coloured by that first memory and its content of fear.

For I see that much of my life is about fear.

Fear of failure.

Fear that people will see through me.

Fear that the decisions I have made will come back to haunt me.

Fear that those I have chosen to trust will betray me.

Fear that I will come to regret my life.

Fear that the mask that I put on to protect myself has become so attached that I could not take it off if I wanted to or so attached that I can’t even tell what is underneath it anymore.

Fear that I would disappoint the childhood version of myself.

Fear that if people knew the real me, that I would be rejected.

Fear that truly opening up myself to anyone will only lead to pain.

Fear that other people’s perceptions of me are more accurate that my perception of myself.

Fear that I will not be liked.

Fear that I will not be loved.

And I truly fear that I will never get over these fears.

Its all well and good to say that I need to get over them and learn to accept myself for who I am, but I still, at my age, find this very hard. I am constantly worried about what others think. And it can become an obsession. There are times that I have pulled back from something or someone out of the worry of how others would perceive it. And I have flaunted other things in the desire for people to perceive me in a certain way by associated.

Now you would think that coming out of the closet would have lessened this trepidation of perception a bit. I came out and most of my fears of that process proved unfounded. And yet, that is not the lesson that I have taken. I seem to act as if that would be the exception rather than the norm.

I guess it comes down to this – why am I afraid of myself.

Heroes

2006-10-24T10:15:00.000-04:00

I must admit that I am a TV and movie lover. And nothing gets me going like falling into a new series.

I have always preferred ones that have stories that must be seen in order (like "Lost") rather than ones that can be watched independantly (like "law & Order"). And while last year I didn't really get into any new shows, this years I definitely have.

And I think that the old comic book geek in me has attracted me to the show "Heroes". Its a tale of how people discover that they have superpowers. And for me the origin tales of super heroes were always my favourite.

And another part of it is this desire to feel special. To feel unique.

And most of all, it is my all time dream to be able to fly.

Fight or Fluff

2006-10-23T10:45:00.000-04:00

OK, well I understand Alfred’s comments to my previous post in my nomination of Gay Banker as one of my favourite blogs. As Alfred notes, “His stories don't get anymore interesting than fucking guys around London.” But that is one of the reasons why I truly enjoy a fix of Gay Banker.

Maybe I am one of those incredibly boring thirty-something guys. At least I have been feeling that way lately. I have become someone who gets up in the morning, goes to gym where I work out under the solitude-inspiring ipod haze, go off to work where I work in my own office with my thinking process being my major commodity, go home, have dinner and settle before the hyponotizing gaze of the television. Bud and I have laughed, far too often, over the fact that we are often in bed by 11 on Saturday nights.

Now this is not just a product of aging, but a problem with the been-there-done-that nature of where I am at right now. I spent so many years going crazy – weekends without sleep and more pick-ups than I care to admit to myself.

Much of this changed with my being with Bud. It has been my longest relationship and we are not in an open relationship. So the impetus for going out (i.e. to prowl) is greatly diminished.

And I must admit that Montreal has kind of died on me. It is a great city, but not without its problems. There hasn’t been a new place to go in the longest time. Its so bad that a club burned down, they rebuilt it, and I can’t even tell the difference. If it burns down at least you could try to make it look a bit different.

And its poor here. Nobody likes to admit it, but there is a lot of personal and public poverty here. The streets are a shabbles, garbage is everywhere and especially in the gay neighbourhood, street people occupy most doorways at night. It is just far too depressing. And the fact that winter is a six-month long season doesn’t help.

So what the hell does this have to do with Gay Banker? Well, the reason that I love reading about him is pure escapism with a touch of nostalgia. I don’t have to worry about dealing with the trials of life in his blog. It is a pure sexual blog that I smile at either through recognition of a past event in my life or in a cheerful happiness that I am no longer dealing with it.

Blogs don’t have to have the personal or the political to be enjoyed. They don’t have to cover all aspects of someone’s life, but like Gay Banker they can focus on one portion of a person’s life.

Sometimes I wish that I hadn’t revealed things in this blog. They have become so much more difficult to hide from myself once they have been published. But no matter what I have to deal with in my life, Gay Banker always gives me a moment to withdraw into an easier realm.

Fluff is not a dirty word. Sometimes you need it. There are days that I enjoy reading Salman Rushdie and others where I can curl up quite happily with a James Patterson murder-a-thon. Both have their purposes and neither pretends to be anything other than what they are.

Lone Star Verve Nominations

2006-10-17T09:17:00.000-04:00

Lone Star Verve has announced his Weblog Awards! As many gay men are, I am a sucker for awards shows, and while I don’t have a nomination for everything, here are my nominations.

Major Awards:

Best GLBT Blog of the Year - Joey Destino the god of all bloggers!

Best GLBT Brand New Blog - Brave Hound - as it debuted in January 2006, I guess it could still be considered new – has the best mixes to download for the gym and the guy is HOT

Best GLBT Blog Writing - Sticky Crows - has an amazing ability to find something interesting to say each and every day

Best GLBT Blog Design - Aussielicious - always a great site with changing design and fantastic picture format.

Category Awards:

Best GLBT Eye Candy Blog - Beautiful The name says it all

Best GLBT Personal Blog - Eche Blog I just can't help but love this guy's site

Best GLBT Photo Blog - Sambags Blog - Love it always

Best GLBT Political Blog - Monotonous While not strictly political, it often has that slant

International Awards:

Best GLBT American Blog - Gay Empire while he has been out of action for awhile, I still hope that Gay Empire will return

Best GLBT Asian Blog - Mumbai Jerry how can I resist our Indian friend?

Best GLBT Australian or New Zealander Blog - At Worst, My best - a great blog on life in Sydney filled with personal details and great erotica

Best GLBT Canadian Blog - Acid Reflux an absolutely wonderful blog on the lighter side of life with HIV

Best GLBT UK Blog (Great Britain, Ireland, etc) - Things I can’t tell my Boyfriend I can barely deal with life without a daily dose of our favourite gay banker

Dance Sensation

2006-10-16T10:31:00.000-04:00

Evolution of Dance

Saw this guy recently on Ellen and I fell in love with his passion for dance. Great way to start the week.

Kylie Bound

2006-10-11T11:51:00.000-04:00

It is Bud’s birthday today and he gets a giddy as a little kid on Christmas morning – its so sweet.

I decided to spoil him with a gift this year. Since we have been together, this is the first year that I have had any money to speak of. And I am not usually very good at buying presents – lack of decent taste I guess.

Well, Bud is obsessed, as all good Australians are, with Kylie Minogue. You have no idea how crushed he was when she got sick. And because he is with me in Canada, her past tour was the only one he did not see in her entire career. Now, he is not so crazy that he sleeps with a Kylie doll, but its close.

So I decided to send him to her final concert in the UK next year.

Our friend Stuart, who visited us during the Gay Games, will host him for 10 days in London in January and then Bud and Stuart will head off to Manchester to see Kylie’s last concert.

His overjoyed face was a thrill to see.

But what came next was his gift to me.

I am sending him on his own. I just can't afford to take the time off. And as soon as Bud realized this he said, "But I want you to come. It won't be the same without you."

Mandy (aka Man-Candy)

2006-10-03T16:09:00.000-04:00

Its been awhile since I posted a pic of a hot guy - but to commemorate by reaching 100,000 hits, here's my favourite ones that I have seen lately.

Thanks to all the visitors and posters. This blog has at times been joyful and then painful, but it has always been worth it.

And thanks to Beautiful for the photo

Photos for Previous

2006-10-03T16:04:00.000-04:00

For some reason, blogger was not letting me post any photos on my previous post.

The first is of course the eiffel tower that Bud and I had the obligatory photo in front of:

Here is the amazing Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Started in 1880 it is not expected to be finished until 2080. A poster noted in the comments that I sounded like I didn't enjoy Gaudi and nothing could be further from the truth. While his works appears to come from an altered mind, I love that fact:

Next we have the glory of Pompeii - a very large magnificent relic where every step is on a place where someone likely died in a painful volcanic eruption:

And then there is Rome - speaks for itself:

And no trip to Italy is complete without a visit to an island where the homes are built into the sides of a mountain - ah Capri!:

Running Away

2006-09-29T09:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I have finally come back from my European vacation and I must admit that I had a wonderful time. While it was not a relaxing vacation (and my body is feeling the effects of age) everything about it was near perfect.

September 11

Catching a plane on September 11th is an experience. You can feel the palpable tension in the air throughout the airport. After getting through security that involved the ever so classy putting liquid into the garbage and personal belongings into a clear plastic bag, it was off to my Zoom flight. Zoom airlines is a discount carrier. Bud and I got two tickets to Paris from Montreal return for just under $1200 (including all taxes). And the airline was great actually. Decent food.

Paris - September 12 to 14

Arrived in Paris early in the morning. Oddly enough, no one at Charles de Gaulle looked at my passport. I picked up my luggage and suddenly found myself outdoors. Odd in this day and age.

Made my way to a bed and breakfast called “A Pink Froggy” run by two wonderful lesbians (I wonder if they understood the full meaning of calling a place Froggy in France). The room was on the small size but was clean and only 50 Euros a night. Only a block from the metro as well.

The Paris Metro is utterly fantastic. Everywhere you want to get in Paris there is a metro stop within a few blocks.

Bud and I made our way to the gay area to find a snack and a drink. Got to a place called the Open Bar on Rue des Archives for a cheap sandwich and an expensive beer.

Of course we went to many of the sights/sites to see: the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triumphe, Champs des Elysses, and Place de la Concorde. We were trying to get to the Lourve, but by2pm we were utterly exhausted from all of the walking. My 33 year old body just doesn’t seem to be able to handle as much as it used to. We ended up going back to the B&B, soaking in the tub and had what would be the first in a very long line of afternoon naps.

Met up with a couple that Bud is friends with that live in Paris. They were a very decent down to earth couple who had recently sold their business and we now retired at the age of 40. They took us on a wonderful nighttime drive through the streets of Paris.

Paris by night is far greater than by day. The filthy scourge of pollution is far less evident under the glow of the City of Lights than the glare of the sun. Absolutely marvelous.

Barcelona – September 14 – 18

Took a Ryanair flight from Paris to Barcelona. For those that don’t know Ryanair it is a European discount airline. It cost us one euro to for that flight! I kid you not. The only problem is that the airports are usually a little far from the city. The shuttle bus to the Beauvais airport outside of Paris took 70 minutes, but I slept through it all. Well, and the fact that there is no assigned seating on the flight means that there is a mad dash for the good seats.

Unfortunately as we were checking in a very large security dog jumped on top of Bud and I. Suddenly we were swarmed by security personnel and escorted to a back room. There they proceeded to go through everything in our luggage. I sat there a bit terrified wondering if I had accidentally left something in a pair of pants or in something else. But no, there was nothing. The guards seemed a bit disappointed. At such a small airport I think that they were hoping that they would find something.

The flight was quick and we found ourselves in Barcelona and at another B&B called Eos this time run by two gay Frenchmen. Wonderfully spacious room and great hosts.

Barcelona was utterly fantastic. Sexy men everywhere, cheap food, tasty cheap wine and wonderful heat everyday. The Gaudi architecture looked like he had greatly abused a number of drugs throughout his lifetime, but I loved the feel of the city. Siestas in the afternoon and dinner starting at 11pm took some getting used to, but it was definitely a place that I could call home.

Bud and I was having a wonderfully romantic time there together. And the beach there was stunning .

Rome - September 18 – 23

I have always loved Rome. There is something truly magical about the city and the sense of history is amazing. Of course, once again we saw all the typical sights and had a great time. The highlight for me was the food. Especially a place called La Campana just off Piazza Nicosia. Some of the best food I have ever had in my life including this amazing ricotta and spinach stuffed ravioli in a butter and sage sauce. We went back twice and each and every dish was perfection.

Spent one day at a gay beach in Ostia (about 30 minutes from Rome) just baking in the sun and drinking beer from a beach bar. True bliss.

Took another day and went to see the outstanding ruins of Pompeii and the gorgeous island of Capri. On Capri we took a bus where the bus driver was quite possibly the sexiest man I have ever encountered in my life. Not only physically flawless but the way he drove was utterly enrapturing.

But that was the great thing about both Barcelona and Italy. Gorgeous men everywhere and oddly enough it was often bus or cab driver and off course the cops/soldiers on the streets

Paris – September 24-26

But to Paris again for the Louvre and excessive amounts of food and wine.

It was a really great trip for Bud and I as well. We connected in a great way and had a wonderful time with each other. I think that we needed it as my previous posts will attest to. Yes we have had out problems, but with Bud he is not a malicious person, he sometimes is unable to see beyond his own perception. And while this can be frustrating I know that there is never anything hurtful behind his actions.

It was also good to get home. I missed my puppies (yes, I know that is sad).

But of course, I am looking forward to the next vacation. And the next one will be in the winter and solely involve the beach and being very very lazy.

Away

2006-09-28T09:57:00.000-04:00

Just back back from a nice long vacation - will write an update soon.

Cake

2006-09-06T09:30:00.000-04:00

For a long time I was bothered by the expression "You want to have your cake and eat it too". It never really made sense to me.

Then one day I realized that having your cake wasn't a synonym for eating it, but that the expression was trying to say either you can possess your cake or eat it, since once you have eaten it, you can no longer possess it.

Now I admit that this was not some grand revelation on the level of Siddhartha, but nonetheless it got me speaking. I mentioned it to several people and everyone noted that they hadn't really understood it either.

What has continued to bother me about this situation is that I never had the courage to admit my ignorance about this expression. And I began thinking about all of the other times in my life when I don't ackowledge that I don't understand something and how often other people do the same.

Is it really so terrible to admit that I don't know everything? Apparently yes.

Haqpy Birthday to Me

2006-08-28T08:59:00.000-04:00

Well, I had to change my profile this morning as I have reached the grand ole age of 33!

Yes, another year added and a palindromic one at that. Nothng like working on my B-day but hopefully I will get out of here at a decent hour.

So far I got a bunch of books (yes I am a geek), the second season of Veronica Mars and a new ipod.

Mmmmm, materialism - gotta love it.

"Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same." - Oscar Wilde

2006-08-22T18:23:00.000-04:00

I wish to start out today thanking everyone for sharing their advice, stories and comments to my last post on this site and via email. You have given me no small amount of both comfort over these past very difficult days. I was not surprised by the majority of the responses to my previous post being generally sadness, anger, frustration and a general desire that I end my marriage. I have not really written a post before responding to what people have written back, but I think the time has come.

And I realize that many of you may not understand why it is that I am even having this dilemma. The answer seems so clear to many of you. I feel personally that in this situation I either lose the person that is the most important person that I have and have had in my life or I lose my own self dignity and self worth. This is hardly a wonderful or even remotely easy choice to make. But unfortunately, as with so much else in life I have found, dichotomies don’t really exist as clearly as we thought as kids.

I strive to be as honest as I am able to be in this blog. Part of this exercise for me is to explore my life and what is going on. And it serves no purpose to try to embellish it. But a first-person narrative will always be clouded by the perspective of the writer. And as with any story, there are things that have gone on before the first chapter presented that colours every characters actions without the reader every really becoming privy to that “backstory”.

I remember an episode of “Sex and the City” (shocking, a gay man quoting that show!) where Carrie said to Miranda, “No one else will ever know what happened in your relationship but the two of you.” And the truth is that no relationship of one month let alone four years can be distilled neatly into the confines of one post (or for the habitual reader, this entire blog). Epic novels have been written on the relationship between two people in love and even then, the full story is never told. Taken on its own, in my post, there is the paradigmatic villain and victim. But no matter how much I can reduce what has been transpiring in my relationship to a post on this blog, it cannot possibly tell the entire tale anymore than this entire blog can give you a complete picture of who I am as a person.

I can hardly claim to have been the innocent at every point in this relationship. I have been the villain and Bud the victim. I have done things that Bud could have justifiable left me for. I have not been the perfect mate either.

And for me, breaking up is the easy solution to our problems. Easy in that it will require none of the difficult work in growing together out of these situations. It is the staying together in the hope that we can work this out, that we can both grow up in the ways that each of needs to, that each of us can come closer and closer to “we”. As Joan Baez once said, The easiest kind of relationship is with ten thousand people, the hardest is with one."

Will we be able to save our lives together? Will I be able to save myself at the same time? I don’t know. And maybe my story will follow the same path that many of you who have commented went down. I hope not. It might last another day. It might last another year. I cannot say.

I might not be strong enough to stay in this relationship.

I might not be strong enough to end it.

But all of your kind thoughts and kind words have given me the firm knowledge that if my marriage crumbles (or is already in ruins and I am but a crazed fiddler ignoring it burn), there is still life and love in my future.

Thanks again.

The Test

2006-08-18T13:00:00.000-04:00

Well, I guess its about time that I put everything that has happened down on this page. I was expecting to be able to write this great post after my vacation about all the good times from the Outgames in Montreal, but alas, that is not to be.

The catalyst for our current problems occurred the day after our guests for the Outgames left. Bud came up to me and said some guy that he had met online had invited him to go on a gay cruise around the Mediterranean – not us, him (I doubt if he even knows I exist). Bud is adamant that this is not sexual in nature but that they are just friends. Regardless of whether this is true or not, I just don’t feel comfortable with him going off somewhere on a trip where some guy I have never met is paying for it all.

I have also repeatedly asked Bud to stop using these websites but he has consistently refused (more on that later). Of course I said hell no! When you are with someone else exclusively, let alone married, you don’t go off on a vacation with some other random guy. We were planning on a European trip in September, and Bud felt that he would just meet up with me after the cruise. He also had the gall to state that anyone else but me would be happy to have their boyfriend go off and have a nice free trip if it was offered (I kid you not).

Then he comes to me about 30 minutes later and says that some guy that he went to the beach with about a year ago invited him to Florida. Once again, I say no way. We are going on a vacation soon and trying to save the money and he wants to spend $1000 to go to Florida with some guy I have never met? He gets into a huff about how everyone else would let him.

I respond that we are going on vacation in less than a month and that he has basically been on a vacation for a year and half. Last September he promised me that he would look for a job. He hasn’t even written up a resume in the past year. Now I let this slide because he was waiting to find out if he would be able to work as a nurse. And every month they told him the decision would be soon. But it has been two months since he got that decision and still he hasn’t applied for even one job.

And so I have been getting very frustrated. I’m feeling walked on and over.

See, I don’t feel that I ask very much of Bud although he feels the same. Over our time together I have asked him to do things that he has not wanted to do on very rare occasions. I caught him arranging a meeting up with someone on a well known gay internet site. I asked him to remove all of his profiles. He said he did – but he did not.

Even the very small things he will not do. When he stopped going to French school, I asked him to make sure that the house was clean then. Since that time, I think he has vacuumed the floors once, the bathroom is ready to crawl out on its own. All because he, as an unemployed person, is “too busy”.

I know that these are in some cases petty, but in others they are much more substantial. Bud always gets into a state because he “doesn’t like it when someone tells him what to do.” And I understand that. But to be frank, the things that I have asked of him are things that I shouldn’t have to ask. If work 60-70 hours a week at work and he doesn’t work at all – why should I be cleaning the bathroom on the weekend. I shouldn’t have to ask him to stop using cruising websites whether or not his conduct is benign. I shouldn’t have to say that he shouldn’t go off on a vacation with what he laughingly is calling a “friend” when it bothers me.

Bud is well aware of how important these things were to me. But he did nothing. Now he either does not care about me or only cares about himself. I tend to lean towards the latter that he is a complete narcissistic hedonist who cares only of his own pleasure.

When he threw his fit over my not wanting him to go to Florida, he screamed “Don’t tell me what to do.” And so I told him that he could do as he wishes, but that if he went he shouldn’t come back.

And so I get an email from him at work and it confirms all my suspicions about him. The email is completely all about himself. Never once is the word “us” or “we” mentioned. It talks about how I am not supportive of him and that he “needs” to go to the beach. And then it ends by his saying that he has booked a ticket and is leaving last Thursday.

So I look online and see that he is spending over $1000 to go for three days. And then I discover that he is not paying with our credit card (and therefore someone else was paying for him). And then I discover that he is not going with who he said he was but someone else entirely.

Now, I blame myself for Bud thinking that I was not serious about his not returning if he went. He refused to do what I asked before without consequences so why should this be any different? And I have sat here thinking over and over again that he was going to grow up. That he was going to at some point realize that we were an equal partnership. I kept thinking that at some moment, he would come to the realization that as an adult something you need to make sacrifices, do things that you do not want to. And that if you really love someone, you have to be willing to make that person happy or make that person feel safe. But this has not come.

And I don’t think that I am being at all unreasonable in not wanting my husband to go on some trip with some guy I have never met.

And I guess that I have been blind to all of this because I do love him. But I can’t treat myself this way. I can’t let myself be treated like this. I deserve someone who will consider my feelings (whether justified or not) and someone who will care for more than his own pleasure.

And so he returned on Sunday and we’ve had the “talk”. He finally admitted that it wasn’t the friend from the beach whose house he went to in Florida but the same guy that asked him on the cruise. He lied because he knew I was upset over his wanting to go on the cruise so he thought I would like it better if it was someone else.

Too many lies.

But then the kicker really comes out. Yesterday as I am fuming he actually has the balls to say that he wants to go back this weekend to go to Disneyland. He knows how upset I am and yet that doesn’t quite enter into his head. And he says that since he decided that he wouldn’t go on the cruise then another weekend in Florida shouldn’t be a problem.

What planet does this guy live on, you ask? Well, he is a child – gimme gimme gimme all the time. He believes that if he does not think that my feelings are valid and reasonable then they don’t matter. It basically comes down to that. If he disagrees with me then it’s a “fuck you, I’m doing what I want.”

I then thought about it for a minute.

And I think this has to do with being married of all things. I know that if we were not married, this would definitely be over. But somehow it is not yet. Now I know that some of you after reading all of the above will be in shock that it hasn’t ended yet, but here’s what occurred.

I realized that my greatest pain comes from the fact that he even asked. It would never have occurred to me go on a trip like that. Its not his going but his thinking that it is at all appropriate.

And I realize now what people mean when they say that they have grown apart. Bud and I begun our lives together when we were both carefree souls just enjoying every day at the beach or relaxing. Well, things have changed for me, but not really for him (except the beach part). I told Bud that I needed him to grow up. He is still in so many ways a kid.

But that is who I married. That is the person that I said I would be with forever. And I can’t claim that I didn’t know what I was getting involved in.

But I can’t stay in a relationship if he doesn’t grow up.

But I also don’t want to be the “wife” who is always trying to change the “husband”. I guess that I have resigned myself to letting him do what he wants since trying to get him to do anything else is completely fruitless.

And the thing is that this has been quite liberating for me in an odd way. But it has a price.

I am giving him his freedom but its all really a test of both myself and him. Will he grow up on his own? More importantly, will I be able to accept this? That is the test for myself. I told him that he can go on that cruise. I honestly am at the point where I do not care if he goes. But I do care about how I will feel if he chooses to go and how I will feel when he is gone. I really have no idea whether I will decide that I don’t want to be in a relationship where someone acts in that way. I just know that I don’t want to end a marriage because he is not obedient.

And so the saga continues. I am trying to salvage my marriage by trying to accept him the way he has remained. I don’t know if it is salvageable but I need to try.

Am I being an idiot, a doormat, a completely blind fool? Probably. But I did make that vow nearly four years ago and that vow has certain powers. But I cannot sacrifice my own happiness or my own self-worth to that vow. I have seen the devastation wrought by such thoughts.

In many ways it will come down to honesty. How honest will Bud be and has been with me and how honest will I be with myself.

Entry-less

2006-08-11T08:43:00.000-04:00

I have not posted much of anything lately and what I have has not been very personal at all. It seems that my marriage is coming to an end. I have avoided writing about what is going on because in the blogosphere nothing is real until you publish the post.

When I get the courage to write about all that has happened, is happening and will happen, I will return.

Courage

2006-07-26T18:42:00.000-04:00

Wow, its been over a week since I last posted. Crazy busy at work these days trying to get things done before my week off for the Outgames. As I don’t seem to be able to find the time to write my own words, I thought I would post someone else’s. The following is a speech given my Justice Michael Kirby, an openly gay judge on Australia’s High Court (their version of the Supreme Court), that he gave at the opening ceremonies of the Gay Games in Sydney. Hope you love it as much as I do.

“Under different stars, at the beginning of a new millennium, in an old land and a young nation, we join together in the hope and conviction that the future will be kinder and more just than the past.

At a time when there is so much fear and danger, anger and destruction, this event represents an alternative vision struggling for the soul of humanity.

Acceptance. Diversity. Inclusiveness. Participation. Tolerance and joy.

Ours is the world of love, questing to find the common links that bind all people. We are here because, whatever our sexuality, we believe that the days of exclusion are numbered. In our world, everyone can find their place, where their human rights and human dignity will be upheld.

This is a great night for Australia because we are a nation in the process of reinventing ourselves. We began our modern history by denying the existence of our indigenous peoples and their rights. We embraced White Australia. Women could play little part in public life: their place was in the kitchen. And as for gays, lesbians and other sexual minorities, they were an abomination. Lock them up. Throw away the key.

We have not corrected all these wrongs. But we are surely on the road to enlightenment. There will be no U-turns.

Little did my partner Johan and I think, thirty years ago, as we danced the night away at the Purple Onion, less than a mile from this place, that we would be at the opening of a Gay Games with the Queen's Representative and all of you to bear witness to such a social revolution. Never did we think we would be dancing together in a football stadium. And with the Governor. And that the Governor would be a woman!

True, we rubbed shoulders on the dance floor with Knights of the Realm, such as Sir Robert Helpmann and with a future Premier, such as Don Dunstan. But if an angel had tapped us on our youthful shoulders and told us of tonight we would have said "Impossible". Well, nothing is impossible to the human spirit. Scientific truth always ultimately prevails. So here we are tonight, men and women, indigenous and newcomers, black and white, Australians and visitors, religious and atheist, young and not so young, straight and gay - together.

It is put best by Corey Czok, an Australian basketballer in these Games:

"It's good to be able to throw out the stereotypes - we're not all sissies, we don't all look the same and we're not all pretty!"

His last comment may be disputed. Real beauty lies in the fact that we are united not in the negatives of hate and exclusion, so common today, but in the positives of love and inclusion. The changes over thirty years would not have happened if it had not been for people of courage who rejected the common ignorance about sexuality. Who taught that variations are a normal and universal aspect of the human species. That they are not going away. That they are no big deal. And that, between consenting adults, we all just have to get used to it and get on with life.

The people of courage certainly include Oscar Wilde. His suffering, his interpretation of it and the ordeal of many others have bought the changes for us. I would include Alfred Kinsey. In the midst of the McCarthyist era in the United States he, and those who followed him, dared to investigate the real facts about human sexual diversity.

In Australia, I would also include, as heroes, politicians of every major party, most of them heterosexual. Over thirty years, they have dismantled many of the unequal laws. But the first of them was Don Dunstan. He proved, once again, the astonishing fact that good things sometimes occur when the dancing stops.

I would also add Rodney Croome and Nick Toonen. They took Australia to the United Nations to get rid of the last criminal laws against gay men in Tasmania. Now the decision in their case stands for the whole world.

I would include Neal Blewett who led Australia's first battles against AIDS. Robyn Archer, Kerryn Phelps, Ian Roberts and many, many others.

But this is not just an Australian story. In every land a previously frightened and oppressed minority is awakening from a long sleep to assert its human dignity. We should honour those who looked into themselves and spoke the truth.

Now they are legion. It is the truth that makes us free.

I think of Tom Waddell, the inspired founder of the Gay Games. His last words in this life were: "This should be interesting". Look around. What an under-statement.

I think of Greg Louganis, twice Olympic gold medallist, who came out as gay and HIV positive and said that it was the Gay Games that emboldened him to tell it as it was.

I think of Mark Bingham, a rowdy Rugby player. He would have been with us tonight. But he lost his life in one of the planes downed on 11 September 2001, struggling to save the lives of others. He was a real hero.

Je pense a Bertrand Delanoe, le maire ouvertement gay de Paris, poignarde a l'Hotel de Ville au course de la Nuit Blanche. Il a fait preuve d'un tres grand courage - et il est un homme exceptionnel. When the gay Mayor of Paris was stabbed by a homophobe he commanded the party at which it happened to "Dance Till Dawn". Do that in his honour tonight. And in honour of the Cairo 52; the Sister movement in Namibia; Al Fatiha - the organisation for Gay Moslems and many others struggling for their human rights.

And I think of all of you who come together on this magical night to affirm the fundamental unity of all human beings. To reject ignorance, hatred and error. And to embrace love, which is the ultimate foundation of all human rights.

Let the word go out from Sydney and the Gay Games of 2002 that the movement for equality is unstoppable. Its message will eventually reach the four corners of the world. These Games will be another catalyst to help make that happen.

Be sure that, in the end, inclusion will replace exclusion. For the sake of the planet and of humanity it must be so.

Amusez-vous bien. Et par l'exemple de nos vies defendons les droits de l'humanite pour tous. Non seulement pour les gays. Pour tout le monde.

Enjoy yourselves. And by our lives let us be an example of respect for human rights. Not just for gays. For everyone.”

Categorically Cruel

2006-07-18T14:32:00.000-04:00

One great thing about being a gay person is the freedom to dress however you like. Of course some of us, myself included, get stuck in certain gay clothing traps, like leather pants in 40 degree Celsius weather or a sleeveless T in a blizzard, but there is still an abundant level of freedom for our taking if we want it.

This all came up as I saw this twinkie-something (my new word for the under 25 living among us) was walking down the street in pink flipflops, Jackie O sunglasses, charcoal capri pants and a very see-through white shirt opened nearly to his navel. I had a small chuckle to myself over just how very gay he looked, but then muffled that giggle when I remembered some of the things that I wore at that age (don’t even ask!).

But it got me to thinking that gay people truly are free to dress as “faggy” as we want. Well, at least in the “Big City”. And it becomes a reality that for gay people our dress is a reflection of ourselves. While the breeders out there may have the “jock” or “preppie” or those generalities, we’ve got so many others. It got me to thinking about all the types of gay people I see out there.

1. Gym Bunny – no matter what the season or the occasion, shirt exposes beautifully formed (and intermittently vein-y) arms, too-short-short-short flashing quads or snug jeans and a warning sign saying “If you brush against me shirtless, Beware of Stubble”.

2. Yupster – defined by the Urban Dictionary as someone who wears $300 jeans with a $10 T-shirt – defined by me as someone who spends an inordinate amount of time (and money) making sure that the name on their clothes is acceptable (to whom, I am never quite sure) and that they look as if no effort has been spent whatsoever in putting themselves together.

3. The Bedraggled – noticeable through the ample mop of hair on the head that while undeniably long is never (never, I say!) touching the shoulders – the higher up, the closer to God, jeans of a rather loose variety barely supported on hips and permanently wedged under all footwear.

4. Middle-Aged-Newly-Single-on-the-Prowl – characterized by a general air of cruising everything that walks, this gay guy who has been out of “commission” for a number of years suddenly finds himself back at the gym five days a week working off the spoils of a long-term relationship evidenced somewhere north of the border – typically has a decent body but is wearing the clothing that found him success far too many years and far too fewer pounds/wrinkles/grey hairs ago to really pull off any longer.

5. Juice Monkey – overly tanned and constantly wondering where his neck has disappeared to, the Juice Monkey has perfected the art of appearing as if no one else in the world exists outside of himself and other people who are basically mirror reflections of himself – when a vacant look is truly a glimpse into personality – See Stubble warning in Gym Bunny Above.

6. Former Juice Monkey – man once found under the category 5 whose former pecs of steel now require a man-bra, whose face resembles a leather muppet and whose previously vacant eyes now reflect a tinge of terror that all glory days have passed.

7. Non-Gay Gay – dresses as straight as humanly possible and is rarely seen in the confines of the gay world – partly political (“Ghettos Marginalize Us All!”) and partly out of a fear of letting loose.

8. Door-Just-Opened – the new, fresh from the closet gay man who in the thrill of liberation from the confines of that tiny space is found thrusting himself into every extreme of gay bahaviour and is noticeable through his tight fitting jeans that barely (or do not at all) cover a well trimmed bush, a brightly coloured collared shirt that either does not meet the waist or is opened to the navel, fashionable sunglasses, some type of hat (preferably worn to the side), and his last girlfriend, conveniently converted into best fag-hag until she realizes that she will not get him back not that she will ever find someone else with him occupying all social time, located on one arm and a man-bad (or murse to some of you) on the other.

9. Embrace-It – the bid burly man who has decided to embrace the fact that he will not be a Gym Bunny or any of the others above and thrives in his beer belly, baseball hat, black T-shirt and slightly dirty jeans. Hair can be found everywhere and is frequently the nicest of people since he isn’t trying to impress anyone by false means.

10. Muscle Mary – a gay classic: Either of the Gym Bunny or Juice Monkey varieties whose voice and / or mannerisms just don’t go together with the body image.

11. Leatherman – permanently porting the skin of some dead animal no matter what the weather, a bottle of poppers in once pocket, a pack of smokes in the other, and a well rounded knowledge of sex toys preferably black in colour. Frequents the same small number of bars and has been known to occasionally mix with Embrace-Its. Gym Bunnies and Muscle Marys who dress up as Leatherman for circuit parties are not to be confused with true Leathermen.

12. Circuit Boys – rarely seen wearing a shirt and only seen during the daylight hours rushing from one venue to another or attempting to find their way home from a venue (either theirs or someone elses), the Circuit Boy does not have a long shelf life and will generally convert into one of the above after a number of years. The Circuit Boy can be characterized with large pupils, a layer of dance sweat, and a large number of friends whose names he can’t quite recall at this moment.

13. Top-of-the-Pops – gay men typically in their forties or beyond who have all the right cards in their wallets and a stack of bills, the Top-of-the-Pops are at the height of their professions and can be found frequenting gay bars between the hours of 5 and 8:30 and then at some upscale restaurant after that until around midnight. Their clothes are always top of the line and tend to hide any body flaw that might be under there and are obsessed by great shoes. Tend to attract certain number of any of the above especially when there is a country place or free drinks involved.

Well, I am sure there are others, but those are my categories of the day (gotta love stereotyping people as a pastime!). And which am I you may ask? Well, I’ve been a few of these at some point, but like usual I have no perspective on myself at this point in time.

I guess you could put me in the category of Approaching-Mid-Thirties-Bitchy-and-Full-of-Himself... :)

Strut

2006-07-14T09:11:00.000-04:00

I recently read an article where it was noted that the person being interviewed had books lying all over the house. When questioned why they were not on shelves, she responded by saying that she didn’t like the idea of pointing out to people, “Oh, look at how well read I am.”

This thought has stayed with me for a long time after I read this and it has gotten me to think about the things that I do to get myself either noticed or to elicit a specific response.

Of course this goes beyond the typical gay dress code of showing off your body, package, great hair, etcetera , etcetera, etcetera. This is just our version of plumage I guess (although throwing in a feather boa certainly emphasizes the plumage aspect). I like to pretend that I don’t care what other people think, but that too is a big lie. I am constantly engaged in some sort of activity designed (generally unconsciously) to heighten people’s opinion of yours truly.

Steering a conversation in a certain direction so that I can talk about some fascinating anecdote about myself is certainly not unknown in my repertoire. I will also wear my suit jacket even in the blistering heat because I feel that people will look at me with professional regard (not – ooo a professional – but ooo – he must have a good job). I guess the same thing holds up for putting university degrees on walls. I also love talking the dogs on walks on busy streets since they provoke the “he’s so cute” response.

Is this all just pompous? Perhaps – no – probably. But its also so very human.

Well, but even that is pompous. Why do I always think that if something is normal for me, it must be a human trait? Its like that wonderful line “No one ever thinks that they are a bad person.”

Wild Weekend

2006-07-10T08:57:00.000-04:00

This weekend certainly was quite an active one!

A very old friend of mine came into Montreal on Friday night. Johnny and I were frat brothers and great friends in Edmonton. Right now he lives in Vancouver and works for a large tobacco firm (yes, he’s a smoke peddler!) that is based in Montreal. He has training here all this week with the possibility that he will be transferred here. So he came in early to spend the weekend hanging out.

On Friday night, Johnny and I went down to the Montreal Jazz Fest to catch a bit of the excitement. He was completely fascinated with the plethora of people there (not to mention the fact that people could drink on the street). After a couple of hours, we along with Bud went out for a great dinner of sushi and saki.

At 11 we went out. My next-door-neighbour got us some free tickets to see a show at the Just For Laughs Theatre starting at 11:30. The show was called “La Clique” and it was an adult burlesque circus. Sounds odd but it was utterly fantastic. From the woman who was able to perform magic tricks completely naked, to the guy who could lift another guy above his head using only one arm, to an incredibly sexy muscular German man lying shirtless in a bathtub and then performing acrobatics soaking wet using ropes, the show was astounding. Very sexy and completely hilarious. Was a great time.

The next day, I was hung over in the morning, but Johnny, as a true Vancouverite, went for a jog! Our neighbour, Sam (this smoking hot lesbian), Bud and I decided while Johnny was jogging, that since the clock had struck noon, that it was time for afternoon cocktails. The temperature was 30 C, so we stayed in our backyard drinking for the next 6 hours.

Well, then my age showed and it was time for a nap. After a little 30 minute snooze, it was off to walk around the Latin Quarter and the Plateau to show Johnny a little more of the interesting neighbourhoods of Montreal. Dinner again – although this time a terrible one – and it was back home.

But this was no time to rest. Being a straight guy, Johnny wanted to catch some of the famous Montreal strippers. So it was off to Super Sex downtown. Now, it has been many years since I have seen a naked woman in person and a long long time since I have been to a straight strip club. Jesus, the guys get very rowdy. Screaming all the time. And just generally going nuts. I thought a few were going to have a cardiac arrest when a couple of strippers did a little lesbian action number. But I knew that I was definitely gay when I spent more time looking at the stripper’s shoes than their naked flesh.

One of the uniquely Montreal aspects of this place though was the odd number of women who were at this show with their boyfriends. Wasn’t expecting that.

But the best show had to have been with a guy that was there for his bachelor party. He was brought on stage, his shirt and pants were taken off. And then the strippers used his belt around his neck to lead him around stage like a dog. This wasn’t the degrading part however. Next they forced him down on his stomach and proceeded to tear off his underwear exposing the hairiest ass I have ever seen. And then they whipped his ass raw with belts and finally ended with them ripping off his underwear completely and taking a Polaroid of him butt naked on the stage!

The next day was the World Cup so it was off to an Italian bar to watch them go crazy. And they did. And so last night I was asleep at 9:30 wondering how I ever was able to do even more every weekend and keep going.

Johnny is in town for another week, and I truly wonder how I am going to make it through it all.

Foot in It

2006-07-05T15:52:00.000-04:00

What a strange country I live in. I have seen more flags of other countries being waved around and worn by Canadian citizens during the World Cup than Canadian flags on Canada Day.

Do we have that much of a void of national identity that we need to seek out our ancestors to reach the level of fervour?

Or is it just our pathetic attempts at football/soccer that make fans need to look elsewhere for vicarious involvement?

Addedum: Thanks to Say What for this picture - Makes me want to watch a hell of a lot more soccer

Word Play

2006-06-29T12:18:00.000-04:00

I have been giving a bit of thought lately to the concept of Gay Pride. To me, there has always been a dichotomy to the idea of Pride that I have a hard time reconciling. I understand that when Pride first began, the world for us gay people was a vastly different one. To assert being proud of a quality that many people considered (and let’s face it, still consider) to be a degenerate flaw was a politically motivated statement. Being proud of being gay was a method of accepting it in yourself and demonstrating to the outside world that it was nothing to be ashamed of.

But the problem with expressing it in terms of pride reinforces the “otherness” quality of it. It states that there is something special, something different about it, that makes it worthy of that emotion. And that is where my difficulties arise. If I believe, as I do, that being gay is a natural and normal thing, why should I have pride in a natural thing. Should I be proud to be tall, a brunette, etc.?

And there is always the strange concept of pride as being one of the seven deadly sins. To be proud is considered to be a character flaw. Pride cometh before the fall and all of that.

But perhaps this is all just a semantic game. And to be honest, there is very little about modern-day Gay Pride that resembles the early days. Pride has been taken over by the corporation, like almost everything else. It is a bottled and manufactured profit-making enterprise. Sure, it is still a celebration where homosexual people can come together and cheer the fact that they all share a similar trait, but it has become a large advertisement for beer, a party, a protein bar and even our dear deluded Macy’s.

But this is just a fact of the modern world at the moment and one that we just have to accept I guess. Not much that I can personally do to change to corporation-culture that is North America.

And this year we have the Outgames in Montreal at the same time as Pride. The thing that I have always wondered is if either the Outgames or Pride makes a profit, exactly where does this profit go? Who benefits financially in our community over the success of these events. For example, with the Outgames, there is a lot of work being undertaken to have people in Montreal promote this event to others. Of course, we will all have a great time, I’m just curious who will be getting the big cash gift at the end of it.

Out and About

2006-06-28T09:10:00.000-04:00

I have been a terrible blogger as of late. I have been very busy at work and have barely had a moment to compose myself let alone a post. But the other day Bud said something to me that has been bothering me ever since.

Bud is on a bit of a bridge playing kick of late (and no he is not a seventy-year old man – but he is, as he puts it, the pretty player), and his bridge partner mentioned that he never likes to go out to clubs with this boyfriend, he prefers to do that with friends. And Bud, quite matter of factly as if it were a given, agreed with him.

I have been pretty depressed over this since. And part of this has to do with the fact that we don’t really go out clubbing any longer. For me, I just haven’t had a big desire to do it anymore, but now I know for Bud, part of it is that he doesn’t have a desire to do it with me. And I must admit that I am a bit hurt over this.

We used to go out and have a great time, but what I am taking from his comment is that it wouldn’t be a great time any longer. He mentioned that he prefers to stay in, go to dinner, movies and stuff like that with me - its just the clubbing aspect that he agreed with his friend. And I appreciate that part of the “bar thing” is the single life. But I nonetheless can’t help but feel slighted in this regard.

Its so easy for the slightest little comment no matter how apparantly innocuous to one person can be painful for the other.

Nursing a Bitch Session

2006-06-20T12:02:00.001-04:00

We got some shitty news today regarding bud and his ability to work as a nurse here in Canada. Bud immigrated over a year ago and is a registered nurse in Australia. In order to work as a nurse here in Quebec, the nurses’ union has made it as difficult as humanly possibly even though there is a drastic shortage in this province. He had to submit his transcripts and work experience to the nursing board who would then assess whether an Australian degree was sufficient to work here or whether he would need to take extra training. Regardless he would still have to write a nursing exam and pass a French exam.

It was over one year ago that Bud submitted his application to the board. One year of them telling us each and every month that they would be deciding soon and that hopefully he wouldn’t have to take anything more.

Well, we finally got our response. The union has decided that Australian qualifications are not good enough. One point was understandable. In Australia, midwives deal with deliveries so Bud did not take any course on prenatal care. So they need him to take a course then because, of course, what he didn’t study, he may have to deal with. Heaven forbid, that they just restrict his practice so that he cannot work in those areas.

But they are also requiring that he take a integration program. The integration program can either be done through a work experience of 30 days or through a six month full-time classroom course with a further clinical setting afterwards. And of course, they are requiring him to take the classroom one. And to add insult to injury, there is only one English version of that course about one hour from downtown Montreal. So Bud will take it in French (which will be great for his French but will undoubtedly be very difficult).

But for Christ’s sake, with the waiting until he can take the course and the length of the course, it will be a year until he can actually start. And I am not surprised whatsoever. While taking French courses Bud was always meeting doctors who could not work here without a further SEVEN years of study (I shit you not) so I guess I shouldn’t bitch about one more year. But come on, if a nurse from Australia isn’t good enough to work here, who the hell is? Its not like he has a degree from the University of (insert your own country here – don’t feel like pissing off a nation myself)! I am just incredibly frustrated by this turn of events and I know that there is nothing I can do.

I mean the poor guy studied like hell to become a nurse and as anyone who has ever finished school the last thing you want to do is go back. And for purely selfish reasons, I would love it if I were not the only one working.

Fag-Pas

2006-06-15T18:46:00.000-04:00

When I was younger there were a number of celebrity who I was pretty confident were of the homosexual persuasion. And lo-and-behold, most of them have come out of the closet as the years have gone by or my opinion has not changed.

However, the one main oddity (pardon the pun) is David Bowie. I think everyone on the planet thought that he was gay when he first arrived on the scene (catch the great Quebec movie C.R.A.Z.Y. if you can for an amazing Bowie moment). But now more than every, I seriously doubt that he is gay. As one very effeminante straight male friend of mine once told me, being stereotypically gay and wanting to sleep with women is no easy destiny - woman never take you seriously and everyone always thinks you are just unable to come to terms with yourself.

Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits

2006-06-13T13:24:00.000-04:00

It has been awhile since I talked about India. I had originally planned on writing about my time there with more frequency, but the workdays have been busy.

On my second day there, I partook in one of life’s truly great pleasures. A shave from a barber. I got a shave almost every day from a barber in India and it was an utter pleasure. It began with having a warm towel wrapped around the face to moisten up the beard. After a few minutes of relaxing, the towel is removed, a hot lather of shaving cream is generously applied all over the face.

After a few minutes to soak it in, the barber takes out his straight razor and proceeds to manipulate all the skin on my face, stretching it this way and that, to give a very close shave.

After all the hairs are gone, an after shave lotion is applied and then my face is rubbed with a type of stone that seems to stop all razor burn.

And then the good stuff starts, the head massage. Always amazing and always ending with the strangest element – the popping of the ears. The barber leans into my body, applies pressure to the side of my head and then pulls out my ears until they crack. Totally bizarre but definitely pleasant.

And all this for about 10 cents.

Gotta love it. Of course, one of the true pleasures about living in India was my ability to completely remove myself from certain shallow aspects of my character. My public appearance did not matter to me as much and I let my hair grow. Both sun and sea bleached, I ended up with a big curly (gets curly when long I discovered) mop of hair on the top of my head. And everytime I would go for a shave, the barber would always ask if I wanted a haircut. When I replied with a no, they would always respond with, “Oh, you NEED a haircut!”

No More Macys

2006-06-08T09:14:00.000-04:00

I wish to thank Joey Destino for alerting me to the Macy's situation in Boston - story here

I encourage you to write to them as well. I have with the following letter:

"It was with a profound sense of disappointment and anger that I heard today about a deplorable incident occurring at Boston Macy's concerning a window display regarding Boston Pride. Apparently after complaints about this window display, a portion of that display was removed. Upon finding both the before and after pictures posted on the internet, I became even more disappointed with Macy's. Two male mannequins, standing apart from one another, were removed from the display.

I personally find this to be an incredibly distasteful action. The fact that you would lend credence to the belief that two men standing beside one another is in anyway obscene is not even the worst of it. What is truly horrendous about your actions is that you would stoop so low as to take away the "gay people" out of your display, but continue to leave the remainder of the Pride display in place. Hide the homosexuals, but try to exploit Gay Pride. The hypocrisy is flagrantly evident.

I cannot believe the gall that you have in continuing to use Gay Pride display, acting as if you had anything to do with any of the reasons behind such an event, after shoving the mannequins back into their closets.

I, like many other gay people, have enjoyed shopping at both Macy's and other fine Federated FDS stores – in the past. I, like your mannequins, will choose to remove myself from your stores and provide my hard earned money to somewhere else.

In the meantime, I hope that you will remove the display in its entirety. Your version of Pride is one thing I definitely find offensive."

Soloman Square

2006-06-06T12:58:00.000-04:00

I was reading the other day about a kid who had been expelled from school for bringing in nail clippers. Apparently the school has a “zero-tolerance” policy regarding certain items and as these clippers had a two inch blade, they qualified. What has always struck me as fundamentally wrong about zero-tolerance policies is that they are incredibly childish.

Now I don’t mean childish as in silly, but as in formed from a child-like perspective where the world actually exists in a black-and-white reality. When you are a child, you believe that if you don’t do the right thing, you won’t go to heaven. And right versus wrong is a brightline. You believe in Santa Claus. And for me I believed in God.

But at some point, I began to question my belief in God – or to be more accurate, I began to question my belief in a religion’s view of God and the ultimate. I hit that devastating point of realization that not all I was told was necessarily true. I think it may have started when I saw the movie Gremilins as a kid. It was in that film that I found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real. And, it hurt. But the true hurt came from the understanding that I tale I had been told was not real. I had been lead to believe that it was, but it was not. And everyone was in on the secret except for me.

And I began to wonder about the other “true” tales that I had been told. And one question lead to another. And the answers I found erased a part of my world for me.

But I have always been a little jealous of the true believers. Their lives seem to be so much easier to deal with at time. Fundamentalists (of any variety) have no need to question their motives or to question the purpose behind a specific viewpoint, it is just that way. There is no grey area. There is no trying to understand the other side. There is no relativity. There is only zero-tolerance.

And that is why zero-tolerance policies are so distasteful to me. They are a way of avoiding having to make any determination, any evaluation, any investigation. A set of events fits into a specific laid out pattern of facts – guilty. And it is this child-like view of “if the show fits” that disturbs me the most. When did the idea of the wise old Solomon suddenly become such a foreign concept?

A nair clipper may have a blade but it is not a knife. Just as a square is a rectangle but a rentangle is not always a square. But if you bring down an edict that you can't even consider the other, suddenly everything with four sides is a square and we lose that all too valuable human qualities of consideration, deliberation and evaluation.

Missing You

2006-05-31T13:16:00.000-04:00

On a much lighter note than yesterday...

I miss Buffy.

I only started watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer while it was in its first season. The name always kept me away even after I had heard that it was a good show. I had caught snippets here and there but never really kept watching. But then, one day while flipping channels, I caught the beginning of an episode where Buffy finds her mother dead on the couch.

I couldn't stop watching what would turn out the be easily the best episode of television that I saw that year and ranks in my favourite of all time. After that, I couldn't get enough. I rented the seasons I had missed and caught every week.

It was remarkably well written. Each year had an overarching story behind it that would wrap up at the end of the season (unlike Lost (or Twin Peaks) that continue with the same mysteries and never really resolve a thing). The dialogue was great and the ideas were always interesting (LOVE the musical episode - brilliant). And things did not always end well for the main characters - when Tara got shot through the chest I could barely breathe from the utter shock).

But Buffy and the Scoobies are gone. Gone and I have yet to find anything that gives me the same pleasure as those 60 minutes a week.

Head First into a Wall

2006-05-30T13:44:00.000-04:00

So I live on the ground floor of a duplex in the gay village of Montreal. The main reason for getting this place is a huge backyard. Unfortunately when Bud and I moved in last year, the yard was a jungle of weeds. Some were literally (I am not exaggerating in the slightest) taller than me a 6’2”. It was horrendous. Along with all the weeds, there was garbage, pieces of old buildings and just a general wasteland littered all over the place.

Bud and I (well, okay, Bud basically did everything) cleared out the yard until only dirt was left. Since we don’t own the place, we didn’t want to put in sod, so we bought seed and planted the grass. Came up well. Bud then planted about a hundred bulbs to come up this spring.

Now one side of the yard is a brick wall that is the back of a bar located on a street perpendicular to ours. On this wall there is a fire exit. Now this is the only fire exit for this bar. The bar is permitted to use this exit out of the courtesy of the landlord. There is nothing on the land registry that gives them this right and if our landlord wanted to seal it up, he could. This would effectively close the bar down.

Well, over the past year, people in the bar have been using that door. First it was coming in the yard unbeknownst to us, but this spring they proceeded to destroy a lot of Bud’s tulips. Of course we were furious. Spoke to the landlord and I asked that he instruct the owner of the bar to either put a bar on that door that would set off the fire alarm if opened or else we would seal it off. And then the bar would have to close since they do not have an emergency exit.

Look, I have no problem with people destroying the yard if there is a fire. Of course not, but when someone extends the courtesy to have this in place, you don’t go about abusing it. And that is just what happened. Last week, I got a call from Bud at work. The bar owner and the property owner were in the yard as Bud was reseeding the lawn. Bud told them to leave and they proceeded to claim that we had to keep the door area clear and that they were entitled to use it.

Bud put the owner of the property on the phone with me, and I proceeded to explain to him that he had no right but that this was just a courtesy to them and that while we had been very patient, this was now getting ridiculous. He thought he had a right, so I told him to verify with his own lawyer, since as a lawyer myself, I had checked on this. He accepted it and signed off.

A couple of moments later Bud calls back. The owner of the bar (with whom I did not speak), on his way bar into his bar, tore up more of the flowers and then started to rip out the flower beds themselves. I was flabbergasted. I had just explained that I could have them shut down and he wants to antagonize me? I just don’t get it – oh the Quebecois sometimes live their lives as if they are the only people who exist and we are just bit players in their grandiose tales. So I told Bud to call the police.

The police came by and said they would speak with the bar. The next day the police returned. I explained the situation and the police officer (very cute by the way) said a fire exit was necessary. And I responded, “I know. If I want to seal it off, it would shut them down.” I stated that if the bar was concerned that we were blocking the exit or in some way doing anything that was dangerous to their patrons, they could call inspectors or the police, but that they were not the enforcers of this matter. I offered to show the police the title report to indicate that the bar had no right of access. After looking at it, the police said they would go in and advise the bar that we could shut them down if we wanted to.

And since then, the glorious yard is calm. I am just so confused that someone who relies on the kindness of strangers would have the gall to pick a fight that they cannot win.

And that’s my rant for the day.

A Word of Thanks

2006-05-24T09:10:00.000-04:00

Today is the six month anniversary of this blog. Over the past half year I have made some interesting revelations about myself, come to a better understanding of what makes me tick, made some inane thoughts public, and generally scribed my life down into these pages. Like everyone else I have changed over this time as well, but one thing that has not changed is my commitment to writing here.

And it has not always been easy. Sometimes I have read over what I have written and been slightly appalled at myself, but its part of the journey I guess. I have been greatly surprised at how much this blog has meant to me. For a longer time I found great solace and wisdom in the writing of others but was always trepiditious about exposing myself in this way. But nothing could have prepared me for how much I rely on this space to reflect on my actions and my interactions with the rest of the world.

Looking forward to what the next six months bring and I want to thank all of you who have shared this time with me. I especially want to thank those of you have taken the time to make a comment here (well…after I figured out how to turn them on! ) and those of you who were kind enough to write me emails of encouragement. Your words, while occasionally difficult to hear (truth sucks sometimes) were always a complete pleasure to receive.

And to my fellow travelers in this blog world, thank you as well for your writings. So rarely do we ever verbalize the emotions and the perspectives that you all seem to be able to discuss in print. I remain fascinated and grateful for your sharing your lives with me.

What a Gay Wants

2006-05-19T09:12:00.000-04:00

SEXUAL RACISIM

I was recently reading an article in an Australian gay weekly that discussed the idea of sexual racism. The gist of the article dealt with how minorities within the gay community are often slighted. And while I have no dispute with that element, one other part of the article caught my attention. There was a group that was protesting things like “No-GAM” (Gay Asian Males) notices on dating sites.

Now, back in the day when I was a wild single man, I used a variety of websites myself. And while I never went so far as to state on my profile that I wasn’t into any particular racial group, I also can’t deny that there are certain races (hmmmmm, Italians….) that I can barely resist and others that I don’t find sexually attractive. And one great thing about being a single gay man is that if you are looking for sex (and sex alone) other men don’t really have a problem with this. So I don’t really see what is wrong in spelling this out in the sexual arena. Perhaps this is in the naivety of a white guy, but if you not attracted to someone because they are short, blond, have hairy chest or not, have big feet, have a huge cock, like to dress preppy or happen to be a certain race, all of these things are the same. This is just a question of attraction.

To me, this is different from saying that you don’t want anything to do with someone because they are Asian for example. This is saying you are not sexually attracted to someone for that reason. I’ve been turned down because someone was into Asians and I didn’t think he was a racist for it. Just honest about what he was looking for physically in a person.

But then I got to thinking about whether this sexual attraction would preclude me from having a relationship with someone due to their race. And I have to admit that it probably would. I need to be sexually attracted to whomever I am with. Does this make me racist? I don’t think so. Just shallow. Very very shallow.

Black Comedy

2006-05-17T08:35:00.000-04:00

Got the news yesterday that one of my best friends will be coming to Montreal for the Gay Games this summer. Stuart and I met back in 2002 in Australia. I had gone there on an exchange for school. When I arrived I stayed with a friend of mine for a couple days while looking for a place to live. Before I had left Canada I had set up a few appointments (thank god for the internet!), and I arrived at a semi-detached house early one morning.

The room for rent was a furnished one that was available for exactly the same amount of time that I was going to be there and the location was half-way between the university and the gay area. Perfect. Two other guys were living there. One was a stereotypical older queen (well, in his forties) who was a hairdresser. He would wake up in the morning and pour a glass of wine out of a box in the fridge and settle down for a day of getting plastered. And this occurred everyday. It was my first exposure to a true alcoholic rather than the binge ones that I was far more intimately familiar with.

My other roommate was to be Stuart. Stuart hailed from Zimbabwe, but with British citizenship, and was there on a working traveler’s visa for a year. Stuart and I hit it off right away. As we were walking down the street trying to get to know each other he asked, “What kind of movies do you like?”

“Black comedies,” I replied.

“Did you like How Stella Got Her Groove Back?”

I hit the ground, literally, laughing my ass off, “No I meant like satire,” I giggled out. And Stuart without any hesitation broke out howling at himself. I knew then that anyone who could laugh at himself like that was someone that I would love (Of course, I failed to realize at that moment that Stella was not even a comedy).

Stuart grew up in Zim in a very precious and well-off life. His family owned a number of farms and he had many servants including the head lady Margaret. He even took a plane to school. Oh, rough life. This was before the change in political climate in Zim that saw his family lose a number of farms through “re-patriation”. For his birthday, I got a shirt made for him that said across the front “I had a farm in Africa” (to ape “Out of Africa”). Before I gave it to him, I hesitated. I was after all poking fun at the loss of property that his family owned. But my darling Stuart saw the humour. In fact, he ended up wearing it everywhere and became quite a pick-up shirt for him.

But what truly characterized the difference between my youth and Stuart’s was the story of when he first went to London to go to school. Stuart arrived and eventually found that he needed to do laundry. But he sat in front of the machine and realized he had no idea how to operate it. Calling his mother in Zimbabwe, Stuart asked, “How do you use the washing machine?”

“Oh,” his mother replied, “I have no idea. Margaret!”

My Passage into India

2006-05-12T15:51:00.000-04:00

In response to a previous comment, I thought I would give a little discussion about my life in India. I know that I have mentioned that I had lived in India a number of times, but I have never really gone into any great details.

For a number of years I had wanted to go to India. Part of this stemmed from a personal challenge. I had always heard that traveling in India was the hardest place, so I thought if I could do it there, I could handle anything. And it was also a yearning to experience a place of true history. Where I grew up, if a building was 50 years old it was considered an historical landmark. In India, I knew that I would be confronted not only by centuries of history but by a culture completely opposite of my own.

And so I decided to save up and when I was 26 I went. And I went alone. Now I have traveled before with others and by myself and they are two very different experiences. When I travel with someone there is a shared bond that inevitably develops as well as an enjoyment of being able to discuss what we have been through. Being on your own though forces you to meet other people and provides an enormous flexibility. My big plan about India was that I was just going to stay in places until I wanted to leave and then just go off somewhere else.

But I also wanted to spend time living in India not traveling around. I didn’t want to just try to see as much of the country as I could, but to experience life there.

I arrived in Bombay well after midnight on scorching hot day. I had been bumped up to business class on my Singapore Airlines (got to love them!) flight and so the juxtaposition of that luxury to the devastating poverty floored me. The airport has the look and feel of a 1950s swimming pool. A layer of grime coating small tiled walls. And I was quick to learn that this grime was everywhere.

A city of 10,000,000 people with almost as many cars all driving with leaded gasoline. The air pollution coated everything with a layer of soot. By the end of my third day in Bombay, all my white clothing was grey, my spit had turned to black and the back of my throat burned from the pollution in the air.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

The trip from the airport to the more touristy area of Bombay was about a 45 minute drive through shanty towns of the barely living. Dogs were constantly running by the side of the road and oddly enough they all looked the same. In fact, for the entire time that I was in India, I only saw one breed of dog! And the drivers were absolutely crazy. Traffic lanes were non-existent and the air pollution was matched by its far more evil cousin – noise pollution. Instead of our rigid rules of the road, the Indian driver lives by the single Gold Rule – He Who Drives the Larger Vehicle has the Right of Way. And so horns honked incessantly to warn other drivers of an approach, a turn, anything. The cacophony of screeching horns would prove to be a braking point later on. But at that time, I was too fascinated by the excitement of this new world.

We finally made it to the hotel that I had booked for my first two days. Stepping out of the taxi the sidewalks were covered with the homeless sleeping where they could and the rats that ran rampant over their slumbering bodies. I made my way into hotel and tried to sleep.

The next day went I awoke, the heat was beating down inside my room. The ceiling fan sputtered around and I quickly got dressed in shorts and a T-Shirt. As I walked from the hotel in search of a restaurant I couldn’t help but notice that everyone kept staring at my legs with an expression of utter astonishment. I later learned that only small children wore shorts and to see a grown man wearing them is like seeing a woman in her forties with pigtails! But I was blissfully in ignorance and off I went to begin what is still in many ways a defining period of my life.

And what happened next will have to wait for another day.

On the way

2006-05-09T09:23:00.000-04:00

I am the first to admit that I am still a bit of an adolescent even at my advanced age. Of course, I haven’t had to grow up due to having kids of my own or been forced into some realm of respectability. But I have been wondering about the path that I have taken. The thing is that here in Quebec people can go into law school directly out of high school. In the rest of North America you typically have to do a different degree first.

What this amounts to is that most people start their law careers when they are around 26 while here there are lawyers in Quebec that start this job at the rip old age of 21. To me, starting my life as a lawyer at 31 was early enough. And I honestly feel for these young people in many ways. My twenties were a time of enjoying university, traveling around the world and just generally getting into trouble. For them, it is long hours of hard school followed by long hours of intense work.

Now, my debt is certainly higher, and at their age my income was undeniably lower, but there is a huge drawback over trying to get life started so early. You tend to miss out on a lot of amazing things. And when you are younger you are ready to experience things that are not so pleasant to contemplate when you are older. Lets just say that there are certain places that I stayed at when I was living in India that I wouldn’t even consider staying in now. I guess I have become more of a princess as I have gotten older.

But it is difficult as well for me to accept sometimes that the path chosen by others is not the better one. I try to remain optimistic over where I have come from and where it has lead me to. I could started my adult life at a much earlier age, but so much would be different today. And I tremble at the thought of losing some of it.

Absence

2006-05-03T17:14:00.000-04:00

Been having one of those very painful weeks. Bud has been gone since Friday and won’t be back home until Saturday morning. Crazy how a little absence can help you realize just how much you love, need, depend on, and value a person. All of my time at home right now just feels empty without him there.

And this is, to be honest, a different emotion than I have normally had with other men in my life. Typically, I have usually been happy to have a bit of distance every now and then with the person in my life. The freedom to be a slob again around the house, to watch what I want on TV, eat what and when I feel like it. All that crap. But with Bud, it is different and I truly miss him when he is not around.

Now you may be thinking, “Ah, he’s just saying this, since Bud will read this!”, but I have a confession to make. I was reading one of my favourite blogs the other day and he talked about how he and his bf got into a fight over what he had posted. Well, I am a little bit more shady in this respect. I have never told Bud about this blog.

Now, some of you may be appalled by my (in)actions here, but this blog wouldn’t be the same if I knew that he was reading it all the time. As I have said before, this blog was started as a way for me to organize my thoughts about different things and as a way for me to put into some concrete form the way I am feeling about things in my life and life in general. My decision to keep this an anonymous blog was because, knowing myself as I do, I thought I would probably engage in a lot of self-censorship. Its just the way I am – a little too focused sometimes (i.e. constantly) on what other people are thinking about me (See I am so self-centered that even when I am thinking about what other people’s thought are, they still involve me).

And part of this honesty is knowing that I am not going to have to explain myself to my love later at home. This is in many ways a diary and I want the freedom of that medium.

Would he be hurt if he found out? Maybe. Not by the content, but perhaps by its existence. But I guess my main fear of telling him now has to do with the fact that this has become a very important outlet for me. It has become a way that I can force myself to think about my own actions and have some wise commenters point out for me the basis behind some of those same actions. I don’t want to lose this blog because he is uncomfortable with it. I have seen a few of my favourite bloggers disappear due to conflicts between writing and the people in their lives (you know who you are), and I don’t want to have to deal with that.

And this is due to a realization about my relationship with Bud. We deal with “us” in different ways. Whereas I am constantly compromising things for his peace of mind or just for what he wants, any hesitancy or refusal to cave into those demands are often met by pouting or anger. (He is a bit like Monica from Friends when she said “Compromise is doing things my way”). And I don’t want to get into a fight over this.

But of course, this highlights a problem obviously that we have as a couple. And, what couple doesn’t have problems? Its not a major one, but it has been one that has arisen on a number of occasions. Its funny in many ways because when we first started dating, it was the opposite. Bud bent over backwards for me and would do anything for me – but now that has gone full circle to where even the slightest request for deviation from what he considers to be the proper path is met with resistance.

And I can say that this is not a major problem, because it hasn’t become one yet. But in all honesty, it could. We have discussed it a number of times, but, not surprisingly, nothing has changed. I guess its one of those situations where a number of small instances together or one large occurrence will bring on a cataclysmic result. And I don’t want this blog to be a part of that drama.

The Real Mission Impossible

2006-04-28T08:37:00.000-04:00

Does anyone still actually want to see Tom Cruise in a movie?

And for that matter, Capote as a villian?

Tit for Tat

2006-04-27T11:20:00.000-04:00

IN a slight change from my more philosophical slants to my entries lately, I have a rant to make. The other day I received an email from a gay blog that stated basically that he had a link to me and unless I put a link to his site on mine he would remove the one on his site.

Well, to that I say “Fuck You!” I couldn’t believe the nerve of this guy. For me, I link up to people’s whose writing I enjoy reading regularly and also a longer list of sites that I have looked at. I just thought it was courteous. Now, I can be a bit slack about adding people in – you know that ten seconds of extra time needed just seems so much more painful than it actually is – but its all in the spirit of letting people check other sites out.

But this ultimatum made me completely furious. Don’t get me wrong, I am always happy to find a link to myself on someone else’s blog, but trying to exact some sort of price for that “privilege” is just ludicrous.

I Ran

2006-04-25T09:21:00.000-04:00

I received an email from a reader the other day that I just couldn’t bring myself to respond to. It was from a gay guy in Iran who had recently visited Europe and was overwhelmed by the possibility of being gay in a free society. He asked me for advice on how to find someone to love and I just couldn’t respond.

First off, what the fuck do I know about finding love. For me, its always just happened. There never was any plan or any scheme to find my one and only. Bud and I just lucked into each other.

Secondly, how the hell do I help someone who is gay and in Iran of all places. It certainly has given me pause. I see that so many of my squabbles with how gay people are treated here are really not all that bad when considered relative to what other people in the world go through. Of course, my basis for relatively inside my own culture must be other people who live in this society (or else what is the point?), but I definitely understand that a lot of people are far worse off. I cannot imagine having to live with being gay in a place where it is subject to the death penalty.

We here in the West have made much progress on the acceptability of gays and lesbians. Of that there can be no doubt. And I can only imagine the intense envy of someone living outside of that construct. I have written before about how the internet has given many young gay people the chance to realize that they are not alone. That there is a world out there that is just like them and that there are places where they will be accepted. But this is only good for those people that can actually get there. What about those who can see that there is this utopia (from their perspective), but do not have any means or way to get there? What kind of hell is it to have the piece of food within view, but without the reach to end starvation?

My hearts aches for what these people have to go through. The torment that they will likely live with for the rest of their lives.

And I have no answers for this young man.

I have no advice to give.

I have no right to give hope.

And I find myself only thanking that this is where and when I was born and praying that the times will change in more worlds that the one before my eyes and beneath my feet.

Conceive

2006-04-20T15:39:00.000-04:00

I was walking home from work the other day taking full advantage of the wonderful warm weather and I was struck by an extraordinary commonplace fact. Each person that I passed was completely different from the next. And I am not speaking of personality here, just sole physicality. And for once, I considered this strange occurrence.

Strange in its unique status among other animals on this planet. But the more I thought about it the more I began to wonder whether this was actually the case. Can’t people tell their dogs apart from others of the same breed? Is there really such a divergence between the differences between humans and those between other animals. Perhaps, to flip an old joke, to animals, we all look the same.

But then I began to wonder about how this is then a question of perspective. A number of years ago when I was working in a bar, whenever I would request something from a manager friend of mine, she would always respond by “You really do think that the world revolves around you, don’t you?” And the answer is “Of course.” One of the fascinating things about our existence, to me at least, is the singular perspective that we have. No matter what any of us our doing we always look at things through our eyes, feel things through our skin, and experience things through our bodies. No matter how much we may try to empathize with others, even that empathy is filtered through the lens of our perceptions. We are never able to experience a single thing where the world does not revolve around ourselves.

And it is through this constancy of body that we build our ideas of personality. Since I have always existed inside of this same body and experienced things through this same entity and set of organs, the person within must be the same. But perhaps this is a great fallacy, a lie that we have constructed based on this uniform perspective that is impossible to escape. While I would recognize my physical self from ten years ago should it appear suddenly in front of me (I have seen the photographic evidence of my youth!), but would I recognize that person at all. Can I really say that who I am today and that person are truly one and the same.

I often hear talk about people changing (or not changing) and the constant evolution that is sweetly phrased “growing up” – but what does this all mean? If there are things that I do now that I never would have even considered before, I am the same person then? Of course, it comes done to a question of classification in the end. Do you maintain your personality and merely see it change over the course of a lifetime or is life an experience as a multitude of different persons that inhabit the same body linked together by the illusory wrapping of memory and body?

One thing is for certain though, at any age I have been able to have my mind wander from noticing that people all look different to considering the basis of consciousness. Maybe my parents were smoking a little something when I was conceived.

And that word itself is perhaps a link to the puzzle for I have often found our choice of words to describe our collective understanding. To conceive or have a concept is normally used to describe the act of forming something in the mind. But in the context of birth it is meant as a physical rather than a mental one. However, maybe conception is more of a mental idea than I previously thought. For if to be conceived is for the thought of who I am to be created, to emerge from nothing, then this is what conception is. For it may be from that moment on, an idea of myself begins. From my parents contemplating who I will become to my own belief about who I am, these are all merely conceptions surrounding a physical being.

The Rundown

2006-04-11T10:30:00.000-04:00

When I was nineteen my parents got divorced. This hardly came as any big surprise to me. I knew for most of my life that they weren’t in love with each other but I never ever saw them fight. The lack of love was pretty easy to see however – my Mom, who would celebrate the anniversary of losing a tooth, never celebrated her wedding anniversary. But both of my parents came from broken families, and when they got married they vowed that they would stay together until all three of us kids were grown up.

This is not a good plan for people who despise each other and I think it was easier for my Dad who did truly love my mother. But my Mom always wanted something else – she always saw that what she had was far less than what she wanted. And I think that it was passion.

My Dad wasn’t exactly a passionate man with her, and how can I blame the guy since she stayed mainly for us kids and not for him. Not exactly a big incentive to lay out the love. Dad has since remarried to a woman that he was sweethearts with when they were six years old, and to see the two of them together all mushy and gushy in love, he is hardly recognizable.

My Mom on the other hand spent the last ten years hoping to fall in love. She was with a complete asshole for about five of the past years. He was a controlling psychologically abusive man who I finally convinced her to leave one night. She stayed with him through a lot of shit because she was always hopeful that there would be passion.

And I can see myself reflected in this. When I met Bud nearly four years ago in Australia, I was, as I have mentioned before, with someone else. But when we met I got swept up in a torrent of passion with him that I was helpless to resist. I knew that he was bad news from the start for me (but in such a good way), but I was paralyzed and unable to help myself from seeing him. For those three months before I had to leave Sydney, we were caught in the incredibly exciting beginning of a relationship where there is an enormous thrill is just being beside one another.

We couldn’t keep our hands off each other and every minor parting was filled with the sense of emptiness at his absence. I remember talking to a girlfriend of mine back in Montreal during this time and wondering whether it was Bud that was pulling me away from my then current boyfriend or if I was just missing the passion.

If it was the latter then I knew that I was going to be in trouble. Because the passion does not stay. Eventually, the passion fades as the titan of familiarity overtakes it. Bud and I are definitely less passionate with each other than at the beginning. We went though months of a four times a day excitement to the far less frequency that exists at the moment. And many of the simple passionate things like long kisses seem relegated to the past. Holding hands together is more the oddity than the norm.

Now there are undoubtedly a lot of wonderful things that come from a long-term relationship and I wouldn’t trade Bud in for anyone. I love him deeply and I can’t see that changing. But I worry about the craving for passion. This is not a craving for the excitement of sexual conquest or the thrill of the first kiss with someone new. Part of it is the exploration of a new person and also the excitement that comes with the ego-stroking realization that someone really likes you. And I would be a liar if I said that I didn’t miss that passion of long ago.

And I don’t want to end up where my mother was at – yearning for passion above all else. But I recognize in myself a craving for that excitement. However, the best part of this craving is that I am not craving having that passion with anyone else other than Bud. And so, I’ve got to figure out a plan of attack. Part of it has to do with getting back into shape. My main drive in my return to crazy workouts has not been for myself but to reinvigorate Bud. But the passion also has to take other forms. Its been hard when I’ve been working such long hours to get myself motivated to get out and actually do things in my time off (but winter doesn’t help there either), but I’ve got to get this going.

In a long-term relationship I can’t expect the passion to just return without any work from me. And while I know that I don’t want to find it with anyone else – I can’t possibly be sure that Bud wouldn’t want it. I know that he loves me deeply, but that tsunami of emotion that comes with a grand passion can be very difficult to resist.

I know that better than anyone. And if I want to avoid what many would call a karmic justice, I’ve got to think of something.

The Plastics

2006-04-10T11:15:00.000-04:00

On the weekend I watched a couple of movies from the early nineties including that wonder of cinematic prowess Showgirls! Yes, trashy, poorly acted, tripe stuff – but so funny.

And what struck me most were the tits. Yes, a gay blog talking about women’s tits – I guess its one of those days. But what really got my going was the fact that all of the woman who were exposed had such small breasts. No, that’s not it – their breasts were all normal sized. In the space of just over a decade the “typical” size of a Hollywood set of tits has exploded. What the fuck is going on here!?!

To me, this is a very odd thing. Bud remarked on it as well that whenever you watch a movie from the seventies, everyone seems so flat. Shit, we watched 9 to 5 recently, and even Dolly Parton doesn’t seem very well endowed any longer.

We have become these weird obsessed by plastic surgery animals nowadays that it is getting to the level of freakiness. Now, not everyone on screen has monster breasts, but for every Cameron Diaz or Debra Messing, there are dozens of other actresses who have had their assets grown by means other than nature. And are the men any better? Why is it that on Survivor, which I love, do the men’s bodies start to look incredibly sexy after a month of starvation? Have we hit such an extreme in fashion that near-death is now the height of sexiness?

And the botox craze is no better. While watching American Idol last week Kenny Rogers could barely move his face. The world of the expressionless is upon us. And for what purpose?

Of course, I realize that Hollywood is not exactly representative of reality – but we’re not as far removed from it as we think. In a month, the website www,plasticassets.com, got 130,000 people to sign up for a credit card with the “gift” of free implants. While it was shown to be a hoax, the response was not fake.

I remember reading once a number of years ago in an interview an actor was saying how much he hated Brad Pitt because since his appearance in Thelma & Louise, everyone was expected to have perfect abs. And I can see this. I remember the salvia dripping down my chin in that scene and the thrill of seeing those perfectly sculpted muscles. And part of it was due to its being unique. And now, everyone has them for a shirtless scene. We are still in the hairless, fatless sexy stage. Does anyone actually think that a Gerard Dépardieu could ever be considered a sex symbol again. While it was a stretch at the time, now it seems utterly ridiculous.

Ho-Hum

2006-04-07T10:29:00.000-04:00

Haven’t really been in much of a mood to post anything lately. Everything I start to write seems so pathetic or so completely devoid of any merit whatsoever.

So instead of my often meaningless scribbles, I leave you with some eye-candy for the weekend.

Best Laid Plans

2006-04-03T12:39:00.000-04:00

Well, it is official – Bud and I are pathetic.

While once we were able to sustain entire weekends of non-stop partying, now we are lucky to make it to midnight.

As I previously noted, we were planning on heading out on Friday night. It was a balmy 20 C (four degrees higher than the previous record temperature) and we were ready for a night out. It all started well. Sangria after I got home at 5 and then we headed out for dinner. The plan was after dinner we would head out for some drinks somewhere.

Sushi for dinner at the unheard of hour of 6:00 (as we were both starving!) accompanied by copious amounts of sake was probably not the wisest of ideas for a couple of guys out of shape (in the boozing it up sense). We were finished dinner well before eight and were already suitably smashed.

When we got home, we got a call from a friend, Claude to head out to the strippers later on with him and his landlord. I was not however expecting his arrival at our place before nine. Sad to say, Bud was already in bed (although this was caused by a “bedtime” activity of our own. The bell rings and I snap to attention, waking Bud up and putting on the hostess-with-the-mostest smile. And Bud heads to the bathroom to prepare to head out.

In my inebriated state I couldn’t tell if he was in the bathroom for 10 minutes or an hour, but Bud later said he was there for quite a while praying to that porcelain god and giving his sacrifice. I, the ignorant one in the living room, attempted to make conversation while barely being able to speak. Oh, so sad.

Finally Bud emerged and we were off. Before we could even get around the corner, Bud was asking for the keys to the house to return to that prostrate state on the floor of the bathroom. I, unaware of the extent of his gastronomical troubles, proceeded to the strippers and enjoyed a jolly good time abusing the near nakedness of those wonderful employees. Around 11:30, realizing that Bud had not arrived, I decided to stumble my own way home, but not before running into a business colleague and once again foolishly attempting to speak comprehensibly.

Finally returned home even before the clock had struck midnight to find the boy passed out on the couch. And I was not far behind.

If we are going to survive our planned wild days of summer, we better get back into the game.

Sad sad sad!!

Sprung

2006-03-31T10:57:00.000-05:00

I am so excited about the approaching summer. I admit that I am not a very good Canadian in that I completely detest winter, but as spring is getting ready to get spring, I can feel myself grow restless. I tend to hibernate completely over the course of a long cold winter, but as the heat arrives, I feel the need to get OUT.

And I am so looking forward to the soon to arrive cavalcade of gorgeous shirtless men walking around the blistering streets of Montreal. One weird thing about this city is that while it is fiercely cold in the winter, it is stiflingly hot throughout the summer. Montreal is an island in a river and the valley around us causes intense humidity. But that heat will be welcome this summer.

I am especially excited about the Outgames being held here. Had a great time at the Gay Games in Sydney last time. The number of men that descend on this fair city will be utterly fascinating. I can barely wait.

And even Bud is coming out of his own hibernation with him suggesting this morning that we go out on the town tonight! And I feel like it too. He has been getting very buff over the past few months, and I think he wants to show it off. And I say, hell yes.

Puppy Love

2006-03-29T08:57:00.000-05:00

I was walking to the gym this morning, bright and early as always, along Ste-Catherine’s street in Montreal. Now Ste-Catherine’s is one of the main streets of the city and just before the gym, there are always a number of homeless people that sleep in the doorways of some of the businesses. Over the course of the winter, they sleep there huddled together in the -30 C weather – barely surviving.

And most of these people are pretty young – in their late teens or early twenties. And most of them have dogs. And this morning, I saw something that I hadn’t seen before. Snuggled up with one of the men sleeping was his dog and her puppies. It appeared that these babies had just recently been born and all three were sucking contentedly on their mother’s teets.

And my heart broke. I wondered how these puppies were going to be able to make it. How were they going to survive with someone who was transient? What was going to happen to them? And then it hit me.

I was more concerned with these baby dogs than I was with the people they were with. I pass by them every day in the blistering cold and I have never felt the anguish that I felt for these dogs. I can also imagine some animal rights group advocating taking these puppies with more passion than anyone has shown any of these fellow people. No, wait, this isn’t about society’s reaction. I can’t use its views to minimize my own.

The fact is that I cared more about those puppies than I did about those people. And there is something inherently wrong with that, isn’t there? It says something about me, and that statement brings me no amount of pleasure at all.

An End to Seroconversion

2006-03-28T11:21:00.000-05:00

A report in the Montreal Gazette today noted that researchers have found that certain AIDS medication originally meant for people with HIV has been shown to block the transmission of the virus to negative people if taken prior to sex. The researchers used monkeys in their trial where they administered the two different drugs and then inserted both the monkey and human forms of HIV rectally into monkeys. None of the monkeys got HIV while all but one of the monkeys not receiving the drugs did. Worried that the drugs might only be blocking the “absorption” or detection of HIV, the researchers then waited four months after the last dose and HIV injection, and found that none of the monkeys had developed HIV either. The researchers are now looking to conduct human trials.

The report also noted that a number of people have already done their own personal trials by taking their partner’s or friend’s HIV medication. While I greatly welcome this new development, there are some implications that are undoubtedly involved in this. The first, which was noted by certain professionals, is that this would just lead to unsafe sex practices. While yes, this is true, and the prospect that a virus such as HIV or a resistant form of HIV could be passed, it would undoubtedly lead to a change in habits.

But what I find most disturbing about this development is that it is precisely in the best interests of the drug companies to have a means of controlling HIV in this way rather than a cure for those who are already inflected or a vaccine to protect those who are not. What this amounts to is a lifetime supply of funds from sexually active people. If there were a cure or a vaccine, this would be a one-stop-shop-and-pop. Have it and its over. But instead, with this method, the supply of pills will flow and flow and flow with the profits to go directly to those companies that have chosen this method.

Of course, this is a bit of a cynical point of view, but there is far less money in destroying AIDS than in managing it. And whether we like it or not, drug manufacturers are not in the business for altruistic reasons. The basis of our system is that profit drives innovation. If a company has the choice between a quick influx of cash at one moment and a steady income over years and years, what choice will they make?

But nothing would make me happier than being proved wrong on this one. I can remember, in my old single days, being very worried about getting HIV myself. I entered the gay life at a time when it was a far more deadly disease than it appears now. I have seen people I love withered from the ravages of this tiny replicating organism. I can imagine the feeling of the freedom from the shackles of worry about whether any act was too dangerous, too risky, too clumsy. The rite of passage of waiting for test results (even if I didn't believe that I had anything to worry about) is something I think people can do without.

I still hope for the day when the headline is a cure. In the meantime, I guess I should maybe take off my cynic hat and actually be thrilled that maybe no one else will have to go through the difficulties and pain that some of friends and former lovers have had to deal with and stop caring about whether someone else makes money out of it. For to be honest, one is more important than the other.

Wakey Wakey

2006-03-27T13:48:00.000-05:00

Well, I had one of those completely wonderful weekends where I ended up doing next to nothing while poor Bud had one of the worst as his ipod has ceased to function. This cessation is a mixed blessing for him in that he can barely function without one any longer, but he certainly would love the excuse to get himself a new one (as his is one of the originals).

But back to me! Oddly enough, my body was going into total sleep recovery mode on Saturday. I woke up, as typical, at about 6 or 6:30 on Saturday morning. After lounging around for a few hours, I had a mini-nap on the couch and then decided on a big nap at around 1:30. Next thing I knew it was after 6! Of course, I thought that I would not fall asleep at all that night – but sadly I was sound asleep by 10! Yes – it is an exciting life I lead when I am asleep by 10 on a Saturday night.

But as seems to be normal for me, I am still in my winter hibernation mode. Haven’t really felt much like going out on the town at all for the past few months. I’m sure that will all change once the spring finally arrives. Most of the snow in the backyard is gone, but this has left a puddle of mud that the dogs love to get messy in. Oh, well, c’est la vie.

We pulled out the BBQ for the first time this year and cooked up some sausages. SOOOO GOOOODDD. But then I am spoiled as Bud is a great cook.

Talked to one of my best friend’s in Australia last night as well. He, also a former trashbag, has completely turned into a at home guy. Married as well. It’s a far cry from when the two of us would be out all night every weekend. But this is what happens I guess. Its strange to look at my former self with my new eyes – sometimes I see my past with disgust and sometimes with a longing for those days gone by. But likely its most often with a sense of happiness about both where I have come from and where I am.

Jesus, I guess lots of sleep makes me a chipper guy!

Altered States

2006-03-24T16:20:00.000-05:00

Earlier today a colleague mentioned to me a lawyer on the opposing side of a file that I am working on, and he said of him, “He’s very American.” The thing that stuck with me in this remark, is that phrase is never used to describe a good quality but is only used for the negative.

And this got me to thinking about September 11th. I like many other people remember exactly what I was doing when I first turned on the television that morning and that I didn’t leave my home for the rest of the day. I was crushed by what occurred and my feeling of empathy and sympathy for a people has never been so high. A couple of weeks later near the end of September, I went to New York for the very first time.

I was there for a job interview. As I was getting ready to board a plane, an Arab man in his thirties was in the corner praying on a prayer mat just as I was getting on. And I was flooded with emotions of fear. Quite unjustified generally, but justified by the times, I guess. But I thought, “hell, if anyone is going to be thoroughly searched today, it would be him.”

As we flew into New York, the plane circled around Manhatten. As we moved around that island, the passengers almost uniformly stood up to look out the windows on the left hand side to see the smoking crater. It was no longer a television event for me with the air of unreality incumbent with all images on that box, it was a fact in my life.

After my interview I had a few hours before my flight, and being my first time in New York I wanted to check out the place. Typically in a new city, I will just walk around letting the green or red light guide my journey. This was a mistake on that day. I walked around and amidst the overwhelming number of American flags were the walls of posters of people looking for their loved ones who had died that day. And then I came across a fire station. The engine doors were open and a fireman sat on the bumper on the front of the firetruck. His legs were spread and he was hunched over with his elbows on his knees. Lining the doors were cards fro children thanking the firefighters for their work. As I walked by, he looked up and caught my eye. What I saw was a man decimated.

And I couldn’t take. I fled to the airport four hours before my plane and hid there.

And now four and a half years later, everything is changed. The sympathy and empathy have been replaced with a growing sense of disturbance. What is transpiring south f the border concerns me. The path of healing and seeking to protect oneself has transformed into the most aggressive attitude of a democratic government that I have ever witnessed. America was the victim of an aggressor, but is now changed roles. The lies that lead to the invasion and occupation of Iraq are horrendous. It has become a tale of spin.

How could this have happened? How could a country that was not long ago praised for its leadership in the world suddenly plunged itself into a situation where it is regarded as the evil empire. And what frightens me most of all is that the term is not yet even half way through.

But where are the Americans in all of this? I don't see any mass protests about what is going on. Does anyone actually care? Not enough to do anything about it. Give me lies, give me sweet little lies and I'll take what you want. You need to trample over people in the pursuit of terrorists - sounds good to me - who cares whether the people doing the stomping have any real clue if they are targeting the right people and whose to stop them from just "saying" someone is a target if they want to investigate them for something else. People are banned for writing things in personal journals, people's reading habits are scrutinized.

McCarthyism looks like a picnic compared to JuniorBushism.

And just wait, they'll elect his brother to replace him.

"Those were the days"

2006-03-23T12:13:00.000-05:00

I have been thinking lately a lot about a statement that came up in the movie “Contact”. In that film, a character asks the question, “Are our lives really better with all the advances in technology? Has technology made anything better?”

And I think that there is some merit in this line of questioning. There is no doubt that technology has made our lives easier, and our lives longer, but have they done anything to increase the quality of our lives? In many ways, this will undoubtedly depend on what constitutes an assessment of quality of life. And in asking that question, there is undoubtedly a personal feeling about what is the purpose behind life arises.

Are we a happier people with all of the technology around us? I am not so sure. Before television, families used to actually talk to one another, play with each other, do things. I am a great offender in staying at home to watch a movie rather than go out and take advantage of the myriad of things that this city has to offer. And I use that box as a surrogate of many things. And with all the media that we are inundated with, when is there time to reflect on our own thoughts rather than being told what to think?

The technology of transportation has also provided us with the possibility of traveling and exploring the world. But that exploration of course leads to exploitation and desecration. And it has also created a world where the excitement of travel is reduced. That which is commonplace is removed from the realm of wonder.

Technology has lead to a much smaller world, where with every instant news update, we slowly have become so involved in what is happening to the “outside” world that we neglect ourselves and the ones that we love.

This all began for me when I was considering what it must have been like a hundred years ago for people on their wedding nights. This was a moment where each person was about to see a piece of anatomy that they had quite likely never seen before. A mystery was revealed. Now, we'll all seen every type and size of part well before we've left our teens. There is no mystery any longer. And perhaps it is this mystery that I long for. The fact that imagination has been removed from our lives. I am not talking about the act of being imaginative, but that we do not have to use our brains any longer to conjure up the image of anything. I can imagine the sheer exhilaration that an explorer must have felt when he first came across a giraffe. And then, how to tell people about it. Before the photograph, a person hearing the story would have to conjure up an image for themselves.

Now we just look it up.

Of course, I am cognizant that perhaps I am looking at all of this through the tainted glasses of nostalgia for a time that I have never experienced. And this is true. But the inverse is also accurate. It is impossible to say that people long ago couldn’t be happier without all of the great stuff that we have. Well, you know miss what you’ve never heard of. Happiness’ scale depends solely on reference. Undoubtedly I would be a miserable person if I were transported from this time to the past where to get medical help I would need a leach, and I would be lucky to live to 50, or where to communicate with anyone more than 10 miles from me would take more than a day’s journey.

I in no way am planning on giving up all my creature comforts – I am aware of them so I can’t deal without them. There will be no hippie commune for me. But the question remains, are we better off with all of this? And I do not know the answer.

And yes, I am aware of the irony (à la Sideshow Bob) of using this technology to question it. :)

Prayers

2006-03-20T17:47:00.000-05:00

Got some terrible news on Friday night that has been clouding over me ever since. My older brother’s partner, who had dealt with breast cancer a few years ago, has just found out that it has spread to her spine, lungs and femur. This metastasizing of her breast cancer is definitely not good news. She got breast cancer when she was 30 the first time, and when you get it so young, it will often spread. But I had been hopeful.

Of course, I didn’t want to ask my brother what her chances were but when I looked on the net today, the five year survival rate is between 16% and 20%. Those are not the greatest odds around. And I am heartbroken for my brother. He and his girlfriend were high school sweethearts who got back together about four years ago and are an amazing couple together. In all, they have known each other for more than half of their lives. And she has a son from a previous relationship who, as a teenager, can’t be in a great place now. When you’re a teenager, you’re old enough to understand the reality but not old enough to have the tools to grasp the means to deal with it.

This is not the first time that breast cancer has been I my life. My last long term relationship to someone before my husband dealt with this. His father had breast cancer that eventually killed him. Yes, men can get it too. And for Bud, who I often believe loves Kylie Minogue more than me (I can deal with that!), has been talking about her condition frequently. And of course there is Bud's mother who is fighting cancer right now but who refuses to ever talk about it with Bud at all.

And this is one of those times when I feel the geographical distance from my family. I can’t just swing by and make sure my brother is alright. I can’t offer any real assistance from 3000km away. I know that I would still feel helpless if I were there, but at least I wouldn’t feel so useless to do anything.

I don’t know how my brother is going to get through this. He is easily the most intelligence person I have ever met – absolutely brilliant. But that level of intelligence doesn’t prepare you for dealing with these types of things. Both he and I are very similar in that our emotions don’t linger near the surface (a trait of our father’s) but they are tumultuous (a trait of our mother’s) nonetheless. I know that he will try to be strong, but there will be cracks. I just wish I could be there for him.

And God, to whom I have been indifferent, and of whom I am doubtful exists, for my brother and his girlfriend and also for Bud and his mother, I pray that you will spare them and let each of them get through this with as little pain as possible.

The Bitch-Goddess Who Has a Hold on Me

2006-03-17T12:20:00.000-05:00

Looking back over my last few entries, I can definitely see a streak of bitchiness in them all. But I do have a decent excuse. After many many years I have finally committed myself to quit smoking. Over the course of the past few months, I have reduced my intake from a pack a day to having one in the morning and one at night.

Well, it has now been a week since I ended even those few each day.

Its strange because there have been many other times that I tried to quit but failed. However, this time feels completely different and its due to the fact that I actually want to quit. The other times I was always thinking I should quit or was “encouraged” by Bud to quit. Having come to the conclusion that I want out of my relationship with tobacco has proven to be all the difference in the world.

But a lack of patience is incumbent with this experience and trying to lose weight at the same time as stopping smoking is no easy task. But I told myself I would quit before I was 25, then 26, then 27 , then 30 and so on and so on and so on. But I am getting no younger. And I don’t want it in my life any longer.

Here’s hoping that I can keep it up. One week down, a lifetime to go (and hopefully a longer one at that).

Serendipitous

2006-03-15T08:46:00.000-05:00

Woke up this morning to discover that my predictions of a spring were a little premature as a fresh blanket of snow covered the backyard. But it didn’t worry me. The one thing about March is that no matter what the weather may throw at you, you know that Spring is just around the corner.

Recently I have been thinking once again along the lines of old friends from days gone past ever since I wrote about my reunion. Its so strange how someone can be an intricate part of my life at one moment and suddenly a non-existent remnant of days gone by the next. Of course this will undoubtedly happen when people’s lives take divergent paths, whether geographically, emotionally, professionally or otherwise. But what this serves to highlight for me is the incredible strengths of those that survive all of that.

There are a number of people that I have known for more than a decade who I am forever bound by something greater than the bond between us. These are the people who no matter how much time may pass, once we are in a room together or on the phone, it seems as if we have not been separated at all. I have been lucky to have found these people in my life and I cherish these relationships above all.

But why is it that for some, once you are no longer there to watch the progressive changes in their lives and they in mine, slowly drift off into memory, while others remain a permanent fixture in this path I am on? It is a mystery to me. Sometimes I get together with people who I once knew intimately only to find that spark of recognition missing and all that is left is nostalgia. Why does this happen? I can’t really see any common link among the people who I still share that bond with nor among those who I do not.

The only interesting thing is that for all of my closest longest held friends I have absolutely no idea why we became so close and dear to one another. I cannot pinpoint a time or an event where they passed from acquaintance to friend to something more. I have hung out with many people, but why were these so special to me.

Yet further proof that while I think I may understand myself fairly well (warts, and there are many, and all) I really have no clue.

The Cracks

2006-03-13T09:35:00.000-05:00

Another weekend gone by and another joyful week of work all set to begin. God how I wish I were a trust fund baby.

On Friday afternoon I went by to visit one of my colleagues to see what he was up to on the weekend. Mike and I get together every now and then with Bud and his boyfriend Rick. I have known Mike for about four years and for the majority of that time he was single. It was always a running joke that he was the Asian welcoming committee of Montreal, but this past summer while he was in Calgary on business he met this guy Rick. Rick ended up moving her and since he is in computers, it wasn’t difficult to get a job.

But when he moved here, Rick moved in with Mike. Yes this may seem a bit crazy to move in with someone so soon after meeting them, but Bud and I pretty much did the same thing. So it can work. But on Friday, Mike was telling me that he and Rick were having problems. Part of it centered around the fact that Rick did not have any friends of his own here. And this led to the fact that Mike could never really be off on his own at all.

Now I feel mostly for Rick in this situation. Montreal is a very difficult place to meet people and even harder to meet people if you’re not looking for sex. The language barrier can be exceeding difficult. Even if you meet someone that speaks English (and there are plenty of people here, especially gay ones for some reason) who do not, the barrier still exists in things like humour. Humour is an incredibly difficult thing to learn in a new language, but is an essential element, in my opinion, in making friends.

And of course, once you are out of school, it can be even more difficult. So I understood where Rick was coming from, but I also understood that space is not a dirty word.

And of course, living with someone can be terrible at times. Some things that I put an importance on, Bud thinks are banal, and vice versa. So it is a constant ballet of compromise and change. And its not always an easy thing to do. But you learn not to sweat the small stuff and you learn to pick your battles – well that is if you want to stay together.

And Mike and Rick apparently didn’t have that drive. On Sunday morning, Bud and I took the dogs out for a walk at about 8 (obviously we had a wild and crazy Saturday night!) and we ran into Mike on the street on his way home from a night dancing away. And he was without Rick. I asked where he was, since I must admit that I was oblivious to the fact that things had gotten so bad, and the news was given.

And for the next several blocks, not a mention of this enormous event was made. We talked about everything else except the most significant thing. And why, you may ask? Hell if I know. Why do I sometimes drive on in conversations over the most painful things to people and at others retreat into safe zones of idiotic small-talk?

Numbers

2006-03-10T17:32:00.000-05:00

Just noticed that my hit counter went over 25,000 visits! That's crazy!

Have a great weekend.

Memory Road

2006-03-10T09:33:00.000-05:00

Another Friday and finally the temperature has warmed up. Its supposed to be 9 C today so the snow should be getting to melting anytime now. The day that I am most looking forward to is that first day where there is the scent of spring in the air. I am not sure exactly what brings it out, but the aroma is distinctive and causes my spirits to soar.

The weekend I have a visitor. An old friend of mine from high school is coming into town tomorrow to see me. She lives in Calgary at the moment, but is working a lot out of Ottawa. So on Saturday she’ll be driving down to see me. We rarely, if ever, speak on the phone, and I think that the last time I saw her was in about 1997 or 1998. Its been ages!

But it got me thinking about high school a bit and the inevitable 20th high school reunion that will be coming up in a few short years. And I must admit that I am torn by that event. And its mainly as a result of my not coming out until I was in university.

In high school, I hung around with a bit of a wild crowd that was also not the brightest group of people on the planet. But we were friends for fun not for intellectual stimulation. After high school, most of them did not go to university and we eventually lost contact. I only really ever have any contact with Mel, whose coming here, and one other girlfriend who also lives in Ottawa. For the rest, its as if I now occupy a spin-off of a different series and there are no returning guest roles for sweeps-week in this show.

But there are many people that I would truly love to see again. But what for? I don’t exactly want to connect with them again so that we talk all the time. I don’t was to compare lives now? What I actually want is a People magazine Where are they now? synopsis of what has happened to them since they left the spectacle of my life. Who is fat and bald, who is happy and who is successful, and who has fallen on their face. It’s a little silly, but that is all I would want to take out of it.

But there is a price to be paid. I will have to deal with certain people whose reactions I can’t quite gauge at the moment. I have no doubt that everyone knows that I am gay now. I would be shocked if the reverse were true. But there are many people that I was very close to who I haven’t seen since that time. The girls don’t concern me, but the boys do.

And my desire to have a peak into the lives of these people requires that I allow them to look into mine.

And truth be told, what really is the point of this nostalgia. I can’t say that I truly care for any of them any longer. For many, I think that a reunion is a chance to go back and relive a little old glory. Well, my glory days don’t come from the teens. While I may be incredibly self-indulgent (and self-obsessed, of course), what would I expect from such a trip? And how would Bud deal with it? And how would my former friends deal with Bud?

It is the past. There are no loose ends to tie up. Sleeping dogs and all that…

Been There Done That

2006-03-08T12:03:00.000-05:00

I like to think that most times I have some sort of control over my life. And while external forces undoubtedly impact my existence and path, I am typically steered by my (good or bad) decisions. What I have been experiencing lately though disturbs me greatly over the enormous sense of lack of control that it causes.

I am speaking about that seemingly universal human experience of déjà vu. Most people on the planet have had a similar experience and the most common type of déjà vu is that you have already experienced something before. The latest time for me came the other night when Bud was reading a kid’s French book to work on his vocabulary. He asked me what a word meant and passed me the book. I was suddenly flooded with the feeling that we had had this conversation already, that I had seen the picture in the book before, that I had contemplated its meaning and that all this had happened while I was sitting in the same position on the couch and in same relative position to Bud.

When this happens my heart tends to seize up and I get an uncomfortable feeling almost like I have come unstuck in time. Its incredibly disconcerting. Of course, I am not able to pinpoint the moment when this happened before since this feeling is not one of recognition but of repetition.

And I hate it.

I am sure that there are a myriad of psychological or physiological explanations for this phenomenon and I am not about to speculate that it could be something paranormal (Matrix-like or otherwise), but whatever the theory that there is, I find it to be a disturbing psychologically traumatic moment. And it seems to come for me in waves. For long periods of time I won’t experience it at all, and then suddenly I’ll have a déjà vu moment a number of times in the same week.

This is sort of linked to another emotion that I get near stairs or railings. I always have this impression that someday I am going to oddly lose my balance going up some stairs (always up…) or walking by a railing and tip over it. Maybe its just the psychological backlash of being tall. But while this one is more of a pre-cognition type of emotion it doesn’t bother me. Can’t control the future. But the déjà vu experience where it seems like I am repeating things in the exact same way makes me feel almost like I have already experienced the future and have now gone back.

But this is all linked to time. Time has often been one of the most fascinating concepts to me. The correlation of time to speed interests me on an intellectual level. If time slows down the faster you travel (according to Einstein at least), then is time linked to the speed at which the Earth rotates at all, the speed at which we walk/run, the speed at which our hearts pump? To me time is probably to most interesting concept of physics that I can’t quite grasp and yet its impact on me is ever present.

Live Simpsons

2006-03-07T17:20:00.001-05:00

The Simpsons - even when its a bad episode its still better than most of the crap out there.

And please Bring Back Futurama!!!

Thanks

2006-03-06T09:13:00.000-05:00

On a less angry note:

Thanks to Best Gay Blogs for their request for an interview - I appreciated the interest immensely.

http://www.bestgayblogs.com/

Mother Fuckers!

2006-03-06T08:47:00.000-05:00

Mother Fuckers!

I was sitting watching the Oscars last night and just before they announced the best picture, I got filled with a sense of pride. I was overwhelmed by the fact that a gay love story was about to win as best picture of the year. It was to be a watershed moment. And just before the announcement came I thought to myself, “they’re not going to do it.”

Bud had been saying it all night. He didn’t think they would. I didn’t agree. How could anyone not honour a film that basically won every other best picture award this year. No film that ever won the producer's guild, the director's guild and writer's guild awards in one year did not go on to win the best picture at the Oscars. It would just reek of homophobia. Crash wasnt even nominated for a Golden Globes for Chirst's sake. But Bud was right. And I was sickened by it.

Its sad that I have to turn to the Golden Globes for awards that accurately reflect the best. I was once enchanted by this award show, but it has definitely lost all relevance for me. And luckily I know where my anger should go. The people in this industry vote for these and so it is these people that I will punish. You want to treat me like a second-class citizen; you’ll get no respect from me. Piracy of movies makes all people who work in the movies lose money does it –I’ll never speak out about it. Box office is down this year – just wait until next. I won’t stop going (I’m not that idealistic) but I think that the best thing to do is never see a Hollywood film on opening weekend. “See it Second” I say. Make them wait. Buy a DVD? – I’ll put my money elsewhere.

A vote for Crash was not a vote for it to win, but a vote for Brokeback to lose. No other explanation possible no matter how hard someone may try. And it is a win saturated by irony.

It was ironic that George Cloney can talk about how it is good to be “out-of-touch” in respect of the Academy’s treatment of black people before this same group of people slaps in the face of all gay people out there.

It was ironic that Robert Altman was honoured for his work that never won the best picture award when a sub-standard Altman rip-off like Crash does win.
But it is the height of irony that in honouring a film about intolerance, this group of low-lifes can display the greatest level of intolerance possible.

Nobody Ever Died Wishing They'd Watched More TV

2006-03-03T11:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday at lunch a woman was killed in front of my office when a large flatbed truck sideswiped her and then ran over her with its rear wheels. This all happened in front of the busy office lunchtime crowd on the streets of Montreal, just below my window. And it has been haunting me ever since.

I am not haunted by seeing this accident (which could not have been very pleasant either) but it was one of those moments when mortality blows in your ear to remember that it is a bedfellow in this dream of life whether you remember it is there or not. This woman did not wake up yesterday morning thinking that this would be the final shower and breakfast that she would ever have. And the driver of that truck also didn’t wake up that morning thinking that he was going to take someone’s life that day. And he has ended up taking his own as well. From the reports, it appears that this was an accident and nothing more. The man is not going to a jail except for the one that will inevitably be constructed in his own mind.

The woman was a professional in her early thirties, so life was really just beginning. How many years had she sacrificed in pursuit of a goal that will never be reached? How many times did she put off that thrill of the here-and-now for the foundations of later security? How many days of sitting around doing nothing were spent saving for a vacation that will never come? How many items on her life’s “to-do” list will go without that checkmark. How many hours did she spend in a gym working on a body that will never show itself again? How many times did she skip the dessert to wear a smaller dress?

I was once told that a sign of maturity is the acceptance of delayed gratification. This is of course a part of the gradual understanding of what the future actually meant that I came to know as I grew older. I remember being a kid of about 12 thinking that when the year 2000 hit I would be 26…Old Old Old was all I could think. I wasn’t even able to imagine myself as a 26 year old person (and whatever I did imagine certainly was not what actually happened). And then when I originally graduated from university at 22, I continued working in a bar because it was fun and exciting. I gave no thought to the minimal opportunities that job held for the future. A bartender at 22 is fun; a bartender at 40 can be a bit depressing.

My moment of “delayed gratification” came when I decided that I needed some sort of career. This was a paradigm shift from my previous perspective on life and is a marker of a change in who I was. You lead one life if you believe (and can comprehend all that is involved) that you will live to be 100 and you lead quite a different one if you don’t plan on hitting that retirement age.

But we are all involved in this lottery. There is no escape from it. So we plan for a future that may never happen. We deny ourselves pleasure and enjoyment in the moment in pursuit of a dream that may never materialize. For we also see that without these steps and preparations, if the lottery gives us many years, our failures now to prepare will undeniably hurt later on. And so I gave in to it all. I have moved on from childhood, to adolescence, to adultescence, to adulthood. And it is scary. I don’t want to go through all of this for it to end before the payday. I don’t want to prepare for eight years to race in the Olympics only to disqualify myself in the first gate. I don’t want to lose.

But Mortality isn’t playing the game with me; he’s just keeping time.

Characters

2006-03-02T12:34:00.000-05:00

As a bit of a lighter moment and in honour of the Oscars coming up, I thought I would give my list of the actors and actresses that, while not the most famous around, I find to be consistently amazing no matter what they are in. They are usually the supporting players for the stars but are often shine brighter than any headliner.

Toni Collette

OK, I fell in love with her in Muriel’s Wedding and have always held a soft spot for her ever since. She has the ability whether in comedy or drama to evoke the most real sentiment in just a glance. Her ability to evoke emotion is second to none and at its best when showing that base human feeling of sadness. I’m not talking about the weeping sadness of tragedy, but the slowburn devastation of a life not quite up to what her character wishes.

Dan Hedaya

Known to many as Carla’s husband on the TV show Cheers, Dan has been in countless movies. Whenever I see his name in the credits I am assured that not all can be wrong with the film. He has the ability to be consumed by his characters that I forget that he is acting. For someone with such a distinctive look and voice this is a remarkable feat. The Internet Movie Database lists 109 different roles and in each one of them that I have seen (Clueless and the Usual Suspects being among my faves) he is a completely different person.

Patricia Clarkson

There is some sort of mysterious draw that redheaded women have that I find hard to resist and Patricia is no exception. But it is not only her physical allure that compels my interest in her but also the height of her craft. While I had probably seen her in numerous movies before, I first took note of her as Julianne Moore’s best friend in Far from Heaven. The moment that Moore reveals that she was actually in the presence of a black man, Patricia’s metamorphosis is remarkable. A slight change in visage that shocked me in its power of evocation and simplicity. Her turn as Ruth’s sister in Six Feet Under could only solidify my respect for her work.

Oliver Platt

Oliver’s a strange one for me in that what I most remember him from is being the non-famous person in Flatliners when I was younger. Since that time he has worked in both television and film, but he came back on my radar with his appearances on the West Wing. The only problem is that with the early writing on that show, anyone could look good. However it is his portrayal of a sleezy lawyer on Huff, a little seen but remarkable piece of television, that has put me in his corner. He plays a drug addict bastard with few redeeming characteristics (he sleeps with his best friend’s mother!) but something about Oliver makes you care about him nonetheless.

Maggie Smith

OK, Maggie Smith may be a star to many, but its not like she is going to open a film to box office records. But I have never seen Maggie do anything remotely wrong on screen. From her flighty school teacher in the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie to her role as a Hollywood actress with a gay husband in California Suite to her absolute brilliance in Gosford Park I love seeing Maggie on screen, any screen any time. And I recently caught a little cable movie called My House in Umbria where she solidified her reputation, in my books at least, as the finest actress out there today.

Jonathan Pryce

Jonathan first came to my attention when I watch Terry Gilliam’s oddly prescient Orwellian masterpiece Brazil (if you haven’t seen it in awhile I suggest you watch it again with post-9/11/Bush eyes and be amazed). Jonathan is an incredibly prolific actor who is typically in the supporting area rather than the lead like Brazil. And he plays the villain with as much panache as the hero. Automatically recognizable both in face and voice, he still manages to blend perfectly into character whether its in Pirates of the Caribbean, Madonna, I mean Eva Peron’s, husband in Evita or the Bond villain in Tomorrow Never Dies. But it will always be to Brazil for me – his portrayal of a man cocooned by the bureaucracy that eventually consumes his is an astonishing feat.

Kathy Bates

Is Kathy Bates ever bad in anything? Is any movie not made better just by her appearance in it? I ache for Ms. Bates to be in more films. Thankfully Misery put her on the Hollywood map so that we were not subjected to prettier and far less talented actresses taking parts away her over the past fifteen years. Her full physical exposure in About Schmidt stands as a highlight for me of an actress who can always surprise me.

And finally, I offer an off one. Yes, this guy may be a star, and is not exactly the best actor around, but he is skilled in that all important characteristics of being in really interesting movies. I am never exactly salivating at the thought of him in a movie, but he has nevertheless been in an inordinate number of films that I consider to be remarkable works. While his acting is never a highlight of any of the films that he is in, there is constantly something compelling about them.

Ah ...... Bruce Willis.

Look, I loved Moonlighting. The witty banter of the show always got me going. When I saw my first poster for Die Hard though, I laughed my ass off. “Ya right, Bruce Willis in an action movie.” Well, I ate those words. Great action movie.

Then came Twelve Monkeys (yes I apparently have a hard-on for Terry Gilliam, but even that couldn’t make me like The Brothers Grimm). Its one of those dark movies that play with perceptions of reality and doesn’t exactly end in all smiles and love. Easily one of my favourite movies of the nineties.

The Fifth Element is easily one of my all-time sci-fi tops-of-the-charts movies for me. Its one of those shows that if I ever come across it on the TV I find myself drawn in again. The good ole rule of sci-fi applies here (Sci-fi is either good or bad, when its good, its amazing. When its bad, its worse than anything else).

For me, The Sixth Sense can’t hold a candle to Unbreakable. And here is where Bruce actually makes a decent go at acting. He plays it understated when it could have so easily been over the top. The entire movie reminds me of a comic book in so many ways (yes, I was a childhood comic book geek) that every frame has a purpose.

And my last treat with Bruce was Sin City. Beautiful revolting movie, but down right thrilling.

Motivation

2006-03-01T08:50:00.000-05:00

Thank God its March.

February is always a really difficult month for me. The seemingly never-ending winter starts to take its toll on me as well as the months of lack of sunlight. While it is the shortest month, it is also the most difficult one for me to get through with a good disposition.

And this has been further complicated by my home. Bud and I moved into a new place last July that is the first floor of a duplex with someone else living on the second & third floors. The thing that attracted us to the house (apart from its stellar location) was its enormous yard. We are in the city and we are blessed with a yard that is as big as the floor space of our home.

Now while this was an amazing thing in the summer, and this year will probably be better since Bud spent the Fall planting bulbs for this spring, I am getting completely claustrophobic. There is just no place to get away at the moment. Cabin Fever is setting in and the past week or so of blisteringly freezing weather hasn’t helped. I just want to get out and feel the warmth of the sun on my cheeks rather than the icy blast of a winter wind.

But all bitching aside (but hey, who am I kidding, what would this blog be without my bitching about something here or there), I am slowly getting back into great shape. I have been strict with my diet (generally at least) and my routine of getting up in the morning to go to the gym has hit the level where I wake automatically before 6 on the weekends. Pants of two of my suits that I bought at my thinnest are starting to feel a little less constricted.

And part of my impetus for this is the Gay Games (or Outgames or Rendez-vous or whatever the hell they are called) that are going to be in Montreal this summer. I was at the Games in Sydney in 2002 and LOVED them. And I am so looking forward to their being here. Now Bud and I are not in an open relationship, but I do want to get back to my drool-instigating shape. I still love to flirt and the ego-stoke that comes with being pursued (I’m such a girl!).

Bud is working hard at it as well although he slept in today. He finished another French course yesterday so he ahs the day off. Here in Quebec, immigrants get five years worth of free French classes and so he is boning up on the language. I learnt my French basically through talking to people and reading the paper, so my grammar is not the greatest. But Bud is phenomenal with it. Its wonderful to see the progress that he has made. Learning a new language as an adult is never as simple as when someone is a kid so I feel enormous pride in him in making this effort.

And now back to the joys of the law…

Boys Home

2006-02-27T15:47:00.000-05:00

I was completely spoiled by Bud this weekend and I loved it. As he was sick on Valentine’s Day, Bud made me a Valentine’s dinner on Friday night. Champagne and oysters to start followed by a seafood ravioli that he made from scratch. It was absolutely amazing.

As it was hovering around -20 C (that about -5 F to you Americans) we kept indoors most of the weekend only leaving the house in order to buy things necessary to stay in the house.

Went out and bought some new underwear though. Bud has this thing for Aussiebum underwear. I have to admit that they look great as they are very low-cut, but they have absolutely no room for the package. I end up at the end of the day slightly mashed up.

We got a couple of Calvins and 2(x)ists to try out. Of course buying things like this are always interesting and it highlighted yet another difference between Bud and I. He always tries on underwear first (over existing ones of course) and I always just buy. Guess his way makes more sense, just that I never thought of it.

We shopped at a gay store (i.e. porn and slut-wear) and I was just amazed at the level of tackiness that some underwear has now-a-days. Maybe I’ve just never been a daring person in underwear choice, but a zipper over the pouch just seems to be asking for trouble.

Dog Eat Dog

2006-02-23T14:49:00.000-05:00

As I noted before, I have two young Jack Russell Terrier puppies: the girl is seven months old and the boy is just over three. I am one of those dog-lovin’ people and I can’t help but enjoy them, especially at this age.

They are two polar opposite though, the girl lives up to her identity as the bitch. She doesn’t relish being petted and really only wants any attention when she wants it (God, I love her!). The boy is a complete suck though. You can’t leave a home without him following you along.

My point here is not to talk about my dogs (which is an annoying trait of dog people – I realize that no one thinks your dogs are as exciting (or even exciting) as you think they are. What is interesting is how dog behaviour and human is not so different.

Of course Pavlov showed this long ago in his famous food/bell torture session, but it goes beyond just conditioning. Whenever the boy starts to play with anything, the bitch comes up and takes it away, even if she never liked it before he was around.. Then she’ll run around with whatever it is in her mouth, run around the boy and taunt him. But if he doesn’t show any interest in it any longer, she just drops it and moves on.

Let’s just say that I too have suffered and inflicted this behaviour at many points in my life. I always seem to want what someone else has. And while it doesn’t (often) extend to the point where I both want it for myself and want to deprive the other person of it, this idea of coveting is not foreign to my soul.

And that desire seems to fade if the other person no longer wants it. There have been many a guy in my younger years that I desired while he was with someone else (Forbidden Fruit! Forbidden Fruit!), only to watch that lust fade when they broke up. I remember craving a friend of mine’s Star Wars toy when I was ten, but when he gave it to me, I suddenly found myself leaving it in that Toybox.

And this weird existence of wanting what you don’t have and not wanting all you do is a disturbing one to me. It speaks of a general lack of content with any state of being. Is it a symptom of shallowness where I crave for desire’s sake? Is it just another version of that old joke, “I wouldn’t want to be the member of any club that would have someone like me for a member”? Or is it a more pervasive trait, something that I couldn’t stop even if I tried?

I remember seeing a TV series a number of years ago called “The Human Animal” which examined human beings and their behaviour in the same way that biologists study other animals (the story about what the size of our testicles say is one for another day) that truly fascinated me. What really got me going what not that we were so similar to them, but that we weren’t very different.

Exposure

2006-02-21T17:43:00.000-05:00

I had an email sent to me the other day asking about Sam the Eagle over there and a related question about why I don’t post a pic of myself. The former is a bit easier to answer than the latter.

A number of years ago I was in a fraternity (yes…I was a frat boy, and yes…the stories are true) and my closest friend and I were out on the town with a bunch of people. Now being a typical 19 year old I always felt like I knew everything and I had an opinion about every minor facet of life. Well, in a drunken haze while I was going on about something or another, he called me “Sam the Eagle”. Let’s just say that the general consensus was that the moniker was apt.

At first, it was a little bit disturbing to be compared to such a pompous blowhard. But I eventually realized that they couldn’t all be wrong. It is so difficult to properly gauge how other people perceive you, and here I was given a clue. A not very flattering one, I admit, but a clue nonetheless. At first I tried to stop emulating Sam, but there is no way that I can completely extricate him out of my persona, and so he is one of my talismans. His presence is to remind myself of some of my excesses and also to not take myself too seriously.

The lack of a photo aspect is a bit different. To be honest, when I first started on this blog journey, I didn’t really think that there would be a lot of people reading this crap. But I wanted to keep myself honest here. This world is a small one, and I didn’t want to find myself engaged in self-censorship in fears that someone would recognize me.

But here is where the difficulty lies and the complexity of my thinking arises. Anyone that knows me at all would be able to recognize me from my writing here. It wouldn’t exactly be a big mystery.

Its more of a question of people I don’t know being able to tell who I am. I find it odd that some guy I see at the gym might know a hell of a lot of things about my life from reading my blog and be able to “put my face to it”. I can’t imagine how awkward it would be if I met someone for the first time only to be told that they “know” me already.

I think this stems from the fact that throughout my life I have always considered that fame is one of the worst possible destinies imaginable. I would consider it the height of misery for people to know me on a global fame level, but even a local one is not my idea of a picnic. I enjoy being able to go through my life with a degree of anonymity. Being a lawyer this is not always possible, but generally this is what I strive for. There have been many a career that I chose not to pursue because of the chance that success in them could lead to too high of a public recognition than I prefer.

And so I chose Sam. I didn’t want to use some picture that obscures my face and just shows off my body. This is not a “dating” vehicle for me but a place for my psyche to rest and reflect. I have only been at this for a very short time, but I can already see the benefit of having a record of my thoughts. I wish I had some concrete evidence of how I thought when I was 18, 22, 25 instead of just my perception of that person I once was. And to me this blog is to become a bit of my personal history.

Which brings me to the subtitle: How Did This All Happen? Its, once again in my totally self-obsessed life, a question for myself. How, at any point in my life when I look over these entries, did I end up at the place that I will find myself. These minor notations will be a map through my life. A way for me when I am old(er) to trace the little steps that lead to a great path.

To see where I went right – where I went wrong – where I went too fast – where I went too slow – and where I might wish I were again.

The Way the Ball Bounces

2006-02-20T08:20:00.000-05:00

So Bud and I went to the Montreal Matrix basketball game on Friday night which was a part of his Valentine’s Day present. The Matrix is part of the ABA leagues which is basically the minor leagues for basketball. The game was pretty amazing. The players were not only hot but the play was decent as well.

But it really got me thinking about these people. I was a little depressed for them. Here were a group of men who were obviously loved the sport and were quite talented. But they were never going to make it to “the show”. The really talented ones were definitely too short and the tall ones didn’t have the same skill level as some of the others. And it got me thinking about the dreams of youth and the crashing pragmatism that comes with age.

We all have dreams when we are younger and we are always told that we can reach them if we try. But this does isn’t the case. For all of those that find Olympic glory there are hundreds who will never quite make it. When I was younger I was a competitive swimmer. For years I spent thirty hours a week training, lap after lap, morning and evening, all in the pursuit of an Olympic dream of my own.

But as I got older I realized that the people who did make the Olympics in that sport were typically setting records when they were ten. I was good and had a lot of talent, but I wasn’t a record breaker. Now, of course, there are those people who then train themselves into oblivion to surpass this, but I wasn’t ready to sacrifice everything else in life for the possibility that I might be able to make it.

It was a harsh moment of reality for me. When I realized that no matter what sometimes things don’t work out the way you want them to. And so I watched those players in a game that could not go on forever. Playing in a game that would not end in sponsorship deals or glory. They just played for the love of playing. And I hoped for their sake that they could keep playing for awhile because sooner or later they would come to the realization that they would have to do something else. Children and wives would enter the picture who might need more stability than that job. Bodies would wear down. Spirits would sink.

And at one time in the future a new path would have to be taken. And that change in lanes in never a simple one, never an easy shifting of perspective.

Friday Feast

2006-02-17T15:38:00.000-05:00

Just a pic to end the week with - have a good one

Hidden in Plain Sight

2006-02-17T09:47:00.000-05:00

I find it an interesting piece of human behaviour that we are able to ignore certain pervasive and blatantly obvious elements in our lives – but once they are pointed out, we are help but notice them. This has happened to me frequently and in numerous ways. When I learn the meaning of a new word (and yes, that still happens at my advanced age), I suddenly see it being used everywhere. When someone once remarked on the shape of my hands, from that moment on I always thought of that comment.

Perhaps the most evident example of this comes from a symbol that most of us will see everyday – a corporate logo. Now, I warn you, that once I reveal this secret, you will never be able to look at this the same way. So if you want the mystery to remain, stop reading now.

Above is the logo for FedEx. A simple logo at first glance, but a brilliantly designed one when you see its secret. Its secret is one of movement, of progression, of action – all the things you look for in a courier. It is one of the oldest symbols denoting direction in the world that I use everyday.

Can you see it? A hint – its an arrow.
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓
↓

Well, now you can see it in all of its brilliance. And from this moment on, whenever you see a FedEx truck going by, all you’ll ever see is that arrow.

The Meeting

2006-02-15T09:44:00.000-05:00

After a great Valentine’s Day, I thought a lot about when Bud and I met. And after I read Gay Empire's story today I realized that I had never put the story down in print, a deficiency I will now correct.

It was three and half years ago, but it seems like yesterday. I had gone on an exchange in my last semester of law school to Sydney. Let’s just say that it was more of a holiday than an academic excursion. I had been to Sydney before in 1999 on a working traveler’s visa and had a great time.

Before I left, my bf at the time and I had decided that we would be free to have a little fun while I was away. Of course this was on the understanding that it would only be physical rather than emotional and I was completely fine with that.

The first couple of months passed by with me really enjoying Aussie hospitality. I had worked very hard on my body before I left and I certainly made use of it. I was also preparing to swim in the Gay Games that were to be held in Sydney that November, so I purchased a pass to a local pool called the Cook & Phillip (or the Cock & Pull-it to Sydneysiders reflecting the large number of gay men there). I was swimming along in a workout in the late morning of September 11th when I stopped at one end of the pool.

I glanced up to see the back of this gorgeous man walking away from me to the sun deck outside. From my lane I could see through the windows to the sun deck and I gazed rapt in his presence as he settled into a deck chair. I immediately thought that my workout could wait; I wanted to get a closer look. I made my way to the deck and took a chaisse-lounge near him. Gazing over his beautifully muscular body in black speedos, I was mesmerized. Everything about him physically was my ideal.

But, I snapped myself back into consciousness and said, “No, you have to train!” So back to the pool I went.

Well, that didn’t last long and in a few short minutes I was back out there stealing another look. But I had a massage appointment scheduled that morning, and I wasn’t interested in picking up at the pool. I just thought, well, if its meant to be, I’ll run into him again. So off to the showers I went. Briefly afterwards, there he appeared. But my resolve remained. I got out of the shower and changed.

As I was doing my hair I saw him come out of the showers where we exchanged a smile. Walking out of the pool I was beginning to regret my decision, but that’s just the way it was going to be, I told myself. Suddenly I felt this tap on my shoulders and the simple word “Hi.” I couldn’t believe that he had somehow gotten changed so quickly (I found out later that he had thrown his clothes on and left his bag, underwear and socks in the changeroom. We had a great little conversation, but I told him that I had an appointment to get to, but that we could meet up later.

My massage was hardly a relaxing one as I was thinking about Bud the entire time and I sprinted to his apartment immediately afterwards. We had a great time that afternoon that continued throughout the night and into the next morning. And even at that moment, I knew that he was bad news. I had fallen for him instantaneously over the course of that evening. But I was with someone else in Canada. I had given him my number but decided that I couldn’t call him. “Bad News, Bad News, Bad News” was my mantra.

And it was a correct one. When he called me the next day all resolve disintegrated and from that moment on I have remained completely enraptured for him. I, and we, have our problems. We are human after all. But every morning that I look over at him, I fall in love again. Still the sexiest man I have ever seen with the biggest heart I have ever felt. I can barely believe that I am worthy of such a man.

But worthy or not, he’s a keeper.

Happy VD

2006-02-14T10:11:00.000-05:00

Yes it is true that I my blogger profile setting wasn’t allowing comments. And it is also true that I was not getting emails saying people were trying. And yes it is true that I just thought nobody felt like saying anything. So I apologize to anyone out there who took the time to write a comment but they are lost somewhere in cyberspace.

You may all call me an idiot now.

On a happy note – Happy Valentine’s Day. To all of you with someone in your life, I hope that you spoil them. To the others, at least you can spend money on yourself instead.

On my way to work, once I get off the metro there is a Hallmark card shop right at the entrance to my building. At 7:45 this morning, the place was PACKED with people rushing to avoid neglecting those loved ones. Yes, it is sort of a sad state where you can be made to feel like shit if you don’t purchase something from a store. Ah capitalism works in mysterious and propagated ways.

Bud is getting over his flu and has recovered the ability to talk which is always a good thing. Once again I was up this morning at about 5:30. But today I did not head off to the gym. Wanted to stay around Bud for a bit this morning. He is still home from school today and is passing time with the first season of Veronica Mars. Quite a good show.

I’ll leave you today with a few photos to take your mind off your lack of a bf or to get you worked up for the existing one.

Good Morning Sunshine

2006-02-13T10:38:00.000-05:00

Like every other Monday I am not exactly ecstatic about getting into work. But it always seems easier when I have had to work over the weekend. It wasn’t a ton of hours, but four on each day still sucks. Bud is really really sick at the moment with a terrible flu. Lost his voice as well – which has its benefits. But unfortunately it means having to serve him things. One day of being the good boyfriend helping out is fine, but after a few my evil selfish nature kicks in and I start resenting it.

But enough about my petty nature and on to the petty travails of the Olympics. Always been a big fan of the games. I am a total softy for medal ceremonies. Just seeing people who have strived for so long to achieve a certain moment and to watch them realize their dreams in the singing of a little song just gets to me.

The sport is always good too and I especially like all those Nordic and Germanic men around. Unfortunately being the winter games they are wearing a lot more than I would like, but as they say here in Montreal, c’est la vie.

Other than that, I am very excited about Valentine’s Day tomorrow. Of course, I know that it is just a made-up holiday but it’s a good excuse to make Bud happy. I hope that he likes his gifts. Unfortunately I ordered a couple of things online that haven’t yet arrived. But I guess they will just have to be “unexpected” gifts.

On a more serious side, I have been watching (reading?) with great interest the goings-on at Gay Empire lately. Love his blog, but the dueling blogs vibe that has erupted lately makes me worry for them. I can understand why the bf is not too happy about the unveiling of his life on Gay Empire. But I can attest to the fact that a blog is a great way to deal with life in general and in the specifics. But I don’t see a blog as being a very constructive method of vengeance, if that is what it is used for. The basis for a blog permeates its substance and something borne of frustration and anger may have difficulties in surviving. Just my thoughts and they may be wrong – as they often are.