The State of The Non-Union Address

Okay, so out of the spirit of mending a broken heart, and the willful need of getting on with life, coupled with the thought process that more good came out of the last attempt, than bad. This could be a lie. I'm not sure. Time will tell. I went back on.

I am talking about going back on Lavalife... God, is this what's become of me.

The idea's sound: you take people who say they are single, "available", hopefully honest in their descriptions of themselves. You're not quite sure if they are because there is still room for a significant amount of doubt, but I do count myself among those people who haven't had their trust so trampled on that she can't ever trust another human being again. I also am quite gifted in sorting out the bullshit from the real stuff. I have been wrong before and I'm sure I will be wrong again, but leap I must. It's an annoying personal trait. A mandate, really. I do get myself in danger emotionally, but never a physical threat and certainly not a sexual one.

So, I'm back on again. At first I justified it as a means to flirting innocently with men. Some of them were great gorilla sized bohemoths, others were described as carrying "a few extra pounds". They were the sweet ones, but unfortunately I'm too vain to go out with them. The "average" men were just that. Fuck... the whole thing is completely depressing. I completely remember why I got off the thing in the first place. I'd made a nice connection with a fella I really liked, not really knowing if he was the One or not. But the fella who chose me, ended up dumping me... after I really liked him. Something I was not used to... at all.

I don't get dumped. I dump, not them. I'm not sure whether there was a lesson in that. I don't think I'm necessarily egocentric. I have a healthy ego. I believe in myself and truly think I'm fucking cool. Anyone would be lucky to be with me. So when I find someone who I actually like talking to, like spending time with and like having sex with and then that same person turns around and breaks up with me... Me?... it really throws this girl off. Especially when the girl thought things were going so well.

Maybe it's because I never truly understood why. I think it's important to be brave enough to explain the reasons why one person can't be with another person. It's only fair, really. I'd do it. I've done it. There can be a finality that way. Sometimes there's a risk of expressing need and the other feels he/she has to change to accommodate these requests. You can't really change a person unless that person really wants to change, for his/her own reasons.

I really don't have a list of set requirements. My requirements keep changing anyway.

This is what I think I want:
The man should not cut me off in conversation or on the road; should be expressive verbally, written (would be nice) and emotionally; should be sexually charged and should have honour and respect for me. These are requirements for a lifetime, not just for the first 6 months. Other than that I have absolutely no clear idea of who The One is or should be. Yes, it would be nice to be able to enjoy the same music. Yes, it would be nice to be able to colour and stylistically coordinate with my partner. Yes it would be so great if I could stand the way he ate or actually liked the way he smelled, even when sweaty. And I'd love, love, love it if we'd have the same political views and how we think the world should work. And it would be fantastic if he wasn't socially inept. Okay, well, maybe there are quite a few requirements. Fuck. Well, at least they aren't the base kind concerning annual income, type of car driven, whether he fucking golfs or not. Boo.

I do think people should be together. Forever with the same person? I don't know. It hasn't worked for me thus far and the ones that I've born witness to in staying together for decades seem lacklustre to me. There's some light that is so incredibly dim I can barely detect it in their eyes. I don't want that again. I had that before and it damn near killed me.

Speaking of which, I was out with my ex-husband/best friend last night. The lovely company we were keeping included many people he was previously friends with before we'd met. They were kept apprised of our new love developments of the time, in the beginning. The ex was very expressive in his emotions to others about me, but rarely ever to me directly. I'd hear endlessly from others, second hand, how wonderful I was apparently, but at home I had a friend, a colleague, a supporter, but not a lover. 3 out of 4 ain't bad, is what they say, but I've got to have the 4th, or I've got a best friend. Our friends had looked as us as the model couple. They based their marital aspirations on the "success" of ours. We were the poster children for what true love looked like. Turns out it wasn't that at all. Yes, we had great love. Yes, it sustained us for a long time, but somehow things fizzled. I was concerned I didn't do enough, demand enough, stamp my feet enough, but when I asked him whether I did that or not he said unequivacably I had done all of the above. He just couldn't meet my needs. And that's why things didn't work out. So I left. Many would have happily stayed.

Staid.

I'm not that kind of person.

So even though I miss the feel of a warm body next to mine, I love that I have the entire bed to myself. I love that I can listen to whatever music I want, for however long I want to at whatever volume I want to. I love that the messes I clean up are only my own. I love that there was no committee meeting over the placement of the couch, the colour in the bedroom or what I want to wear for the day. I love that I can go to the washroom with the door open. I love that I can have chips for breakfast without anyone giving me grief. That last one was actually coming from a place of love and concern for my health, so I guess I shouldn't have written that. However.... As lonely as I get sometimes, and as often as I can't see the forest for the trees in respect to thinking I'll never find anyone truly significant again, I'm glad I am alone and that I have the benefit of time and dear, dear friendship. That is the stuff I will be holding onto hopefully for the rest of my life.

Things change. I've changed. I continue to change and grow everyday. That's the best thing about me. I just have to learn to hold onto these changes and not judge myself too harshly because I regress every now and then. Well, let's be honest, every day. But there will be a healthy balance, I'm sure. And there will be someone very worthy of the love I possess.

Just not today. And that's alright.

Okay Everybody... Back To Work

After a glorious two months off I decided, or rather it was decided for me, to return back to work at my previous employ. Tonight was my second night back.

And...
it...
was...
GLORIOUS.

I am a waitress by trade. It's a profession I am neither proud nor ashamed. It's just something I do and something I'm extraordinarily good at doing. Technically I am no master. I am the first person to admit this. I'm horrible at table maintenance and lousy at picking up the next course from the kitchen. What I am good at is giving people a really good time. Apparently it's a gift. I'm starting to treat it that way.

I work at this neighbourhood notorious spot in the East End of Toronto. The vibe is cool and fun and my boss is second to none. He is generous, gracious, kind, fun, wise and wonderful. Everytime I see him it is an honour to be in his presence. I have never before worked for anyone I truly loved... until now.

I'd quit a couple of months back. It wasn't because I hated my job, quite the contrary, I loved my job a bit too much. The way I work is loud, brash, funny, exhuberant, boisterous and totally engaged. Also I like to think of myself as a team player, in the truest sense. I really feel when the restaurant's busy we are in battle mode. You have to get all your ducks in a row in your own section and, if time permits, see what's going on in other people's sections to see if they need help. I try to be helpful. A lot of people don't see my helpful as helpful, they see it as I think they are incapable. This thought process is very interesting to me.

My boss always welcomed and encouraged me because this was a new style formula that he wanted to see implemented, but had never born witness to before. When I came in and did what I did there was almost a sense of ,"Ah-ha! That's it! That's what I've been looking for." The problem was not everyone else performed the way I did. They made it very clear to me I was not welcomed there. So after much isolation, alienation and regret I left.

I guess it could have been viewed as they won, but in the end they really didn't. During the time I was away most of them quit for one reason or another. Ego and vanity, mostly. I came back because it was my time to go back to work. I went back to my old job because, if I didn't want to open my own place, I couldn't imagine working for someone better than my old boss.

One of the people I had the most problems with was Matt. When I first laid eyes on Matt, before I'd even started working there I thought, "Man, this kid's got it." He was smart, sassy, efficient, busy, on top of things, had a wicked personal style and played when he worked. (Very important to play when one works.) Matt was someone I looked most forward to working with in the beginning. Ironically he was the person I had the biggest problems with.

Matt never believed me. He took everything I said from praise to positive criticism as judgement. Simple things like asking if he needed help turned into a pissing match of, "No! I can take care of it myself. You obviously have no faith in me. You bitch." This of course was all subtext. He never told me any of these things while we worked together before, though his eyes flashed his personal truth often.

On my second night back, after my sabbatical, he told me his subtext and he came to realize, through careful consideration, that my strength in character was maybe too grande and often overwhelming for him. It reminded him of his mother. He used to chastise it, poke fun at it behind my back. Tonight, however, he too got grande and overwhelming in his own way and it was wonderful. He commented on his behaviour saying, "When I was doing it I thought of you and I realized it's allowing yourself to be in the moment and getting caught up in that moment." He also said he was sorry about the past and that he finally realized that the criticisms I had of him were completely valid to the point of repressing them in himself.

I had effectively called him on every single bit of fluff and deception he created. That was a hard pill to swallow. He also finally realized that I was just being kind and friendly all along. I really didn't want his head on a stick, presented to the jury for final rites, for him to get his ass fired. I just wanted us to work and work well together, have a wonderful time while doing it and give the people what they came for -- a good time... for Christ's sake!

So the truth won out. Hurray! Just at the perfect time... when I thought all hope was lost.

As Andrew W.K Says: Party 'Til You Puke

So I’m planning a party for my ex-husband’s belated birthday party this coming Saturday. Called all the peeps, deciding on what to make, to buy. Thankfully I've worked out what I'm wearing.

I got t-shirts made with iron-on logos in the front commemorating the day. Well, not really the day, but just a nickname Death calls Mike. I call him Ack. Death calls him Peenut. My print broker thought the spelling was off; it suggested a leaky ball. I think that was Death's design. I kept the actual design to a cute little line drawing. The shirts are wicked. We all have our pet names on the back, with our special numbers we're particularly attached to. Mine is Sunshine 33. Death's is Death 13 and Ack's is Peenut 36. Yay! I was so delighted when the t-shirt guy applied all the letters and numbers. What a treat. It's better than seeing yourself on television!

Suddenly I find myself feeling a little better about circumstances. No, I still don’t have the love I want, but it is really great to have some of those people that you think are God’s gift to the world come over to your house for a one night event. I think this party will be just as important for me as it will be for Ack.

And my sweet Fergus is coming! Yay!

Me Shit-Ripper, You Saboteur

I was writing in my journal this morning about my last night. Kind of pits of despair nether-regions. Nothing too drastic. It only made my want to have one little glass of vodka, happy I didn't have any beer in the house as it would have been too much liquid, and truthfully, the bubbles would have been too chipper and cheerful. Last night I felt A-L-O-N-E.

I was in such a yuck state last night I ended up emailing David. Yeah, great. Like I haven't put myself on the line enough lately. Obviously I just needed further rejection. I think I just felt at the end of my tether emotionally. What's another stab? Like I haven't been humiliated enough recently.

I do like being alone. What I don't like is being lonely. Being single and alone is a hell of a lot better than being with someone and alone. So I'll take it, if there is a choice. And if I'm to remember the big girl who is embracing Buddhism and mysticism then I should remember that these feelings bring me closer to my own truth. However... I still felt lonely last night. Why isn't a wonderful body of friends not enough sometimes? Well, you can't get too physically close to friends. It's too confusing. I was dying for it last night. Not sex, per se, just the closeness felt when two people who care so much about each other are together and beauty is created. Then tears welled up. Sucks.

I can't tell everyone about this. Yeah, so that's why I'm blogging. I told Dirty. She was great. She told me she was lonely too. Somehow this made me feel better. I don't know why. It really makes no rational sense. I think it was the same feeling I had when I watched that 20/20 episode on Attention Deficit Disorder. I was no longer alone. There is comfort. The thing is I think what so many people are going through is utter bullshit. They don't want to get tied down. They don't want the titles "girlfriend" or "boyfriend". It implies too much. Makes them responsible to too much. To one. Really, they are so afraid of having their guts torn out that they hold back constantly, never fully giving of themselves, always the back of their minds thinking this new person is going to rip the shit out of them. Me. Shit-ripper. So they sabotage their efforts.

My friend Dirty was supposed to go on a buying trip with her current boss down in NYC. The night before she'd run into me quite by accident. A happy accident. We decided to go down the street and visit mutual friends that worked at a neighbouring restaurant, after closing hours. Dirty decided she could stay for ONE drink. Ian, my lovely, wise for his years and wonderful friend, generous to a fault, particularly when it comes to pouring vodka, made Dirty a Caesar. Normally, and I have worked as a bartender for many years, this drink contains, at most 1 1/2oz of liquor. Ian didn't measure, but by internal counts he'd put in approximately 5oz of vodka. Ian didn't know Dirty had driven. Ian also didn't know she hadn't eaten anything that day. She'd also ordered a shot of tequila, something I'd never seen her do in all the years of knowing her. A decade. She got so wasted she was hurling matter and non-matter in the basement's washroom, replete with the most beautiful and refreshingly chilled porcelain goddess Dirty's ever borne witness to. She worshipped for an hour.

She poisoned herself. She didn't want to go to New York with Wendy, her boss. She was trying to sabotage the effort. She wanted to make herself so sick she couldn't possibly board a plane, let alone drive with her to Buffalo, Wendy's idea, where airfare is deeply discounted from there vs. from Pearson's YYZ. Cheap cunt. She still went, begrudgingly obliged, still sick, and had a horrible time.

Ian is my self-professed Detachment Specialist. He doesn't listen to the women he has sex with if they talk about themselves and try to endear themselves to him. He says, "Mm-hm" and "uh-huh" in roughly the right places, but when there's a lull in conversation he'll turn to the girl in question and say, "Sex, now? Now sex?" Ian heatseeks "warm bodies". He says he doesn't want the complication of the next morning, or mornings to come. When I ask him about meeting the great girls, the ones he can really see himself with and potentially giving him some extra happiness, he wriggles in his skin saying, "Too scary. Don't want." He later confesses his tactics are a lonely road.

What do I want? I want something incredibly meaningful. I don't want "him" to be my everything. Whoever Him is. I've got a lot going on with my friends and the life I really love right now. I want extra meaning, though. I want to be cherished and loved in the same way I give it out. Well, not exactly the same, otherwise I'd know exactly how it's to come and it would no longer be so exhilerating. Kind of like tickling yourself. You know it's coming, so it's not tickly. So why is masterbating so good? Hmm.

Don't Send In The Clowns, We're Too Tired

Lying in bed with Jeremy the other night we were talking about feelings and how at this one particular point I'd felt as if my heart had opened, broken and this invisible metal shielding came up to protect it. My eyes would almost glaze over and I felt... nothing. It didn't feel right nor good. He thought it was positive. These mechanisms were in place so we didn't have to hurt as much or, in reality, feel as much. I told him I don't operate that way. I don't not want to feel everything. I don't think it's healthy. We try so hard in so many areas of our lives of pretending so many parts. We pretend we're happier than we are, more together, maybe a little richer, more successful. But really it's something other than what we're really feeling.

My mother had called a few days ago asking if I'd accompany her to Alberta to do a reconnaisance mission to see if my estranged brother was alright. I told her I wouldn't go and I didn't think it was a good idea for her to go. She thought otherwise and accused me of being less than compassionate. I told her that everyone has his own time to figure things out. Sometimes it's harder to figure when there's someone over your shoulder questioning, wanting, wishing for more; answers, reasons. People need to come to their own conclusions in their own time. All we can do is support them in their time of needing space to make those decisions. Sometimes, in our infinite wisdom (she spake with a great deal of irony), we know exactly what the problem is and what the solutions are for these individuals, but it takes a great deal of love and compassion to step back and allow them to figure it out themselves. This is a lesson that took me 35 years to figure out. So when Mom asked me how she could demonstrate her love for her son, I told her to keep her love in her heart and when he comes back, and he will, don't hold anything against him for wanting to figure things out and taking the time.

I told her I did very much the same as my brother, Walter, in terms of extricating myself from the family at times. She didn't understand. She didn't really remember. I stopped going to certain family functions just because they weren't fun. No one had a good time. Everyone was trying to convince everyone else of his or her own personal success, whatever that meant to the individual. For me it meant projecting far more happiness than I actually felt, projecting a happier marriage than I really had. This is the problem with clowns.

Clowns have a paid responsibility to make the masses laugh. It's what we think is our mandate. Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and they just leave. So keep 'em laughing. And on just this topic:

From Leoncavello's Pagliacci, Canio's aria, Vesti la Giubba:
~Consumed with despair on discovering his wife's infidelity, Canio gets ready for performance because the show must go on...
First in Italian, well... just... because!

RECITAR!...
VESTI LA GIUBBA

Recitar!... mentre preso dal delirio
non so più quel che dico
e quel che faccio!
Eppur... è d'uopo... sforzati!
Bah! Sei tu forse un uom?
Tu se' Pagliaccio!

Vesti la giubba,
e la faccia infarina.
La gente paga e rider vuole qua.
E se Arlecchin
t'invola Colombina,
ridi, Pagliacco, e ognun applaudirà!
Tramuta in lazzi
lo spasmo ed il pianto,
in una smorfia il singhiozzo
e'l dolor - Ah!
Ridi, Pagliaccio,
sul tuo amore infranto.
Ridi del duol che t'avvelena il cor.

And in English, for us gloriously sad and loving creatures of beauty and buffoonery:

TO PERFORM!...
PUT ON YOUR COSTUME
To perform! In the throes of delirium
I don't know anymore
what I'm saying, what I'm doing!
Still... you must... force yourself!
Bah! Are you a man or not?
You're just a clown!

Put on your costume,
and make up your face.
People are paying, they want to laugh.
And when Arlecchino
takes away your Colombina,
laugh, you clown, and everyone will cheer!
Turn your agony and your tears
into buffoonery,
your sobbing and pain
into a funny grimace - Ah!
Laugh, you clown,
at your broken love.
Laugh at the pain which poisons your heart.

Sketch Factor High

Holy Moly! There is one thing in this world I will never fathom: the consistent sketchy behaviour of some people. And they are consistent, in their sketchiness. Now with sketchy, I'm not talking about the drug induced sketch of today, I'm talking the old school definition: adj. one who is routinely late, and usually coupled with being unreliable. Yes. Well, much of my friendbase consists of these such people.

There's Damian. Damian's wicked. I love Damian. What Damian does is promise you the world, but in the end he backs out, or changes plans without consulting you and you're left potentially with packed bags anticipating a cottage weekend, mentally preparing yourself for bug bites aplenty, but the phone doesn't ring. You try to call him and the phone doesn't answer. Damian is so sketchy that you can't even leave a message on his phone because his mailbox is constantly full of people in exactly the same situation I am. He makes up for it, though. He's always very, very sorry. But mostly he's disarmingly charming and eventually I did end up going to said cottage and having a wonderful time with him and other friends.

Then there's Jeremy. Jesus Christ. He has this affliction, not unlike Leonard Shelby's, from the movie Momento. He has little to no short term memory. It's fascinating and it's irritating both at the same time. For example we'd made tentative, unconfirmed plans to see a baseball game. Things were fine. We'd been chatting throughout the week via email. Nice, nice, nice. Then at one point I'd asked him how his Friday was looking. He said he had these tickets to go see a baseball game. No mention of going with me, just that he had these tickets.... Yeah. It's impossible to make plans with him mostly because there's no real way of knowing if he's going to remember he'd just made plans with you. It's wild, really. He's really bright, but there are moments that I think, "Jesus, he can't be that stupid." So, I'm now the stupid one because *again* I've made plans with him and he's completely sketched out again. He called today around lunchtime. Chat, chat, chat. Fine. We make loose plans for tonight. He called firming them up. Said I'd receive a call by 5:00. It's now almost 8:00. Yeah.

Okay, well he just called and he's not a totally unsensitive jerk-wad. He was out with a female friend/ co-worker and she had just told him the most heinous, horrific tale of her marital predicament. It turned out that he'd also received a package from his lawyer outlining his divorce proceedings. So he and his friend had much to comiserate. He had just lost track of the time. It happens. Not to me, but it happens. When he did call he sounded totally shaken up, mostly from the tale told to him by this young woman. I'll never know this story, which is just fine. I'm glad that he was a friend to her, in this world of not-too-friendly people sometimes. And this is why I can still be friends with Jeremy and forgive him his own very unique brand of sketchy behaviour. If we can't understand and then forgive our friends their foibles and inconsistencies then what kind of friend would we be? Not so good.

Why I Love Guys

I love boys. Guys are great. Men are alright, but guys and boys are righteous! Case in point: I'd just gone to the Curiosa Festival to see Mogwai (wicked) and Interpol (ruled). I met up with Mike, Pete and Gotham. Gotham, I'd pointed out, had the best name I'd heard all day. Probably all month, if not all of this year. I like the dynamics of boys.

When guys meet other guys, in certain circumstances, it's very reminescent of being kids. When we're kids we see another kid, approach them simply because we're the same height and at the same eye level. There's also the potential of play involved. One kid will invite the other kid to play. Sometimes there's an exchange of names right from the start. Sometimes the names aren't brought into the fold until the end, when someone's Mom calls him in for dinner. Last night was very much like that.

I knew Mike, a cook, from a local watering hole. He brought Pete, a best mate of Jimmy's, one of the bartenders at said watering hole. Both Pete and Jimmy are from England, England. Both are hilarious. Jimmy couldn't come. So the three of us are laughing, smoking pot, talking about stuff, critiquing a particularly bad band, and laughing extra hard because the smoke has caught up. Then to my left, Gotham had appeared. No one knew Gotham, but he had a wonderful sense of humour and play. He was invited into our circle immediately. He was terribly enthusiastic about everything, which was refreshing. I found a kinship in him. Instead of using balls, or mallets or gloves or other props, we played with wordplay. It was scathing, harsh, sweet, endearing, incredibly funny and sometimes fueled with delicious malice. But it was highly inventive and creative. Such fun.

What I really like about the interactions between guys is there's none of the weird shit involved when talking with girls, quite often, or at least it's different shit. I've noticed, as a girl who often talks to other girls and quite likes other girls on a whole, there is a kind of procedure in dealing with them.

Unspoken Rule Number 1: You must make a flattering comment about something on them. It could be a piece of jewellery, their hair (they usually love this), eyes, shoes (also a favourite), handbag, etc. This is designed not only as an icebreaker, but it also shows the other girl is not a threat. You don't have to do this with guys.

Unspoken Rule Number 2: You have to talk about your feelings. This may be one of the interests the girl has right now. They really feel something for it. It must be discussed. Guys do this too, but they work it into the conversation more naturally but they certainly don't dwell on it forever. Usually with girls it's a complaint of something someone's done to them, an unfortunate event of needless anxiety at work, or something particularly heinous the old boyfriend did to her. Or, it's just mindless fluffy stuff. Girls try to figure out a solution to the problem. This could go on all night. Guys just say, "Dude, that sucks," and move on.

Guys talk about really interesting stuff, too. Music, science fiction, books, pictures (both moving and still), hobbies and interests. They're always keeping abreast of stuff almost in anticipation of sharing these little tidbits of what most women consider useless information. It is not useless... usually. And this is totally subjective. If I'm not in the mood for a certain topic, I'll just tune out.

Guys cheer other guys on. Guys genuinely like and trust other guys. Guys like to buy other guys beers. That's just nice. And guys are just happy to be my friend without expecting anything in return. Guys are great. Guys are good. Guys live in my neighbourhood.

I Guess I Was Too Old To Understand Before

". . . All earth experiences are like the coloring used on the slides of a microscope to make you conscious of invisible things."
------- Stewart Edward White. With Folded Wings

I'd watched American Beauty before but didn't truly understand the plastic bag sequence until this past week.

What a marvellous week.

The final monologue spoken by Kevin Spacey's character summed up what I'd felt on that magic subway ride.

"I'd always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn't a second at all. It stretches on forever, like an ocean of time. For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars. And yellow leaves from the Maple trees that lined our street. Or my grandmother's hands, and they way her skin seemed like paper. And the first time I saw my cousin Tony's brand new Firebird. And Janie... and Janie. And Carolyn. I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me. But it's hard to stay mad when there's so much beauty in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing it all at once, and it's too much. My heart fills up like a balloon that's about to burst. And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain, and I can't feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid little life. You have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm sure. But don't worry: you will someday."

So Much Beauty... I Can't Take It. It's Like My Heart's Going To Cave In.

I'm trying something out; an experiment. I've been allowing only grace, goodness and love enter in and out of my body for the last several days. By doing this, and it's not a willed feeling, it just is a choice, I have been experiencing the most delicious feelings looking at things that had been merely ordinary and mundane while in a "normal" state. Normal being the state in which we so often walk around - working, but not knowing why and often hating it, making money - but never enough, having friends but not being the best friend you can be. In other words: normal, in this society.

I am trying to live fully in the present. By that I think this quote I came upon online says it best:
..."The circumstances and challenges in your life are not the real you. To deal effectively with these external circumstances, we must be detached from them. Observe what is in your life without judging, without being for it or against it. Just let it be. Detach yourself from it and just be with it. The moment you are for it, the effort to hold onto it begins; the moment you are against it, the effort to run away from it begins. And both struggles take you out of the present moment and into the future, into worrying about the future. This divides you within yourself; this divides you against yourself. When you are detached from the "stuff" in your life, you can take responsibility for it. You can act upon it, or you can just let it go. You can even truly enjoy it. You can live undivided—in the present moment."

I've been having these wonderfully seredipitous moments lately. I'll have questions in my head concerning the ways I've operated in the past or just qualities about myself that I wasn't sure about. I'll happen upon things that help me in my search for self understanding. The answers come if I pay attention. Sometimes just plain wonderful things happen if I pay attention.

I had decided yesterday that it was going to be my own Fun Day. No one else was implicated. No one else was really invited. I was going through the toronto.com site for general event listings. I didn't want to see a movie. Decidedly not fun enough. The idea of going to see live theatre sent a jolt of utter distain through me, mostly because I'd been an actor. But bands... interesting... I could see a live band. So I'm scrolling down and I notice playing at Lee's is The Walkmen.

Oh... my... God!

I took the subway down to Lee's. It was such a marvellous journey. There was a woman @ my 11:00, black, 250lbs, head held between two hands, either chanting a prayer or crying to herself. Not softly. To my 2:00 there were two devotees of Beyonce, both black, both pretty, both shaking their necks trying to outdo the other with stories of how stupid boys are, sucking their teeth but resigning themselves to calling said boys as soon as they got home, away from each other's judgements. Looking back at my 11:00 the older woman had released her head to show me the full cataract in her right eye. It was ice blue, bulging, determined, like a steel marble. It was extraordinary housed in her face. To my 9:00 there was an empty paper take-out coffee cup rolling in an arc along the floor. To my 3:00 there was a Polish looking gent, in his 50's carrying a wrapped gift bag. He was lovingly fluffing the tissue paper adorning it. There was a woman in her late 20's in a cheap track outfit, cheap sandals, one polyester leg crossed over the other. One loose thread dangled from her pant leg. There was a young man, scruffy, would be seriously hot, to me, if he shaved and got a haircut. With the garb and the hair he seemed to be going for that Jesus look. It's a look. I met eyes with him for maybe three seconds. It's an eternity in a subway car. He spent the entire ride looking at my reflection through the window next to him. All of these incidents. All of these images are so incredibly dear and beautiful to me. And they happen all the time to everyone, but nobody really sees them.

The Walkmen are from Washington, D.C. A four piece outfit, solid band. Very tight in recordings. Less tight live. The singer is the weakest link. And I think he knows it. Visually he has a Chris Martin (Coldplay) look about him. Tall, lightly complected, pinstriped suit jacket, casual underneath, sings with all his might. But that's it. He's not really saying anything as much as he's screaming a lot, hyper-developing his massive jugular vein. He comes from the Bob Dylan meets Sepulchura school of vocal projections.

When he walked on stage the mike, which was previously set to "shoe-gazing" standards, was switched to Kareem-Abdul Jabar heights. This meant straining high into the mike while looking down at his audience. To him we were not his supporters. We were his enemies. He looked at us with both fear and loathing at the same time. One is often linked to the other. His band was so good, but his singing style doesn't allow me to play the album as much as I'd like. His lyrics are alright, but this protective stance of screaming what it is that needs to be said, leaves me a bit cold and a bit frightened. Still, I lost my mind during The Rat.

The opening band was called The Uncut. Toronto band. I wasn't going to see them. I was planning to time it so I'd arrive mid set. Saw the whole thing.
Shy. Shoe-gazers. Sweet. Really tight. Really good. I like when opening acts dazzle us, the audience. It's happened quite a few times in my life. Each time it happens I'm secretly thrilled. More votes for the underdog. They have a decidedly new New Order sound about them. Guitar and rhythm section deliciously rich and satisfying, not unlike Interpol; vocals merely a layer, understated, not emphasised, not enhanced, actually downplayed. Very Canadian. Please, God, make them successful. They're a nice bunch of lads.

Watching these two bands, wonderful each in their own ways, reminded me of a story on the CBC's Definitely Not The Opera. Canada's style vs. that of the U.S. The interviewee was saying that when one has a conversation with a Canadian the way things are phrased there is a lilt in the sentence, as if when giving a statement the statement is still up for discussion. It's more a questioning and from a musing perspective. With Americans they tend to state their "fact" and it's stated plainly, bluntly and not open for discussion. It just is. I was telling Jeremy about this and he asked if I was American. He thinks he's very funny.

There's nothing like seeing live music sometimes. I used to hate it, complaining about the *other* people. Secretly I'd once wished the bands I loved would just do a special show just for me. After going to a lot of pubs and listening to decent enough house bands, I realised there is a lot of pressure felt to respond in a positive manner to the musicians involved. Eventually I embraced my concert-going brothers and sisters mostly because it took the pressure off maintaining my enthusiasm for the band. Now I can allow the music to fully penetrate me, make my cranium, chest, and pant legs vibrate madly and just enjoy the moment. I can scream as loud as I want because the bodies absorb the sound. I can jump up and down, laughing and clapping my hands. I can just beam throughout while still maintaining my own anonymity, which is important to me as I've discovered. I like when no one looks at me sometimes.

Music is like good sex to me. Totally fulfilling, exhilerating, evocative of so much. Good live music, with an excellent sound system, is like being picked up, thrown down and being fucked hard. In the *best* way. And when it's that good you clammer for more and more and more...

Practicing Detachment

I don't recall the last time I'd taken an entire summer off from anything, either school or work. Maybe when I was eight. I guess the next time I did so was this summer. And it's been the best thing I could have ever done for myself.

It didn't start off great. I was lying in shavasana, or corpse pose, in my early yoga practice when I decided, or rather my body decided I could no longer work where I was working. So I quit. Yoga was the beginning of all the awareness I've been having this summer. It's been a beautiful and wild adventure.

I am a believer of serendipidous acts. One thing leads to another. Answers are out there if you're looking for them and you pay attention to the signs.

I've made it my business to care about things my whole life. But when I cared too much it would adversely affect my life. If things didn't turn out the way I wanted it would rupture something inside me or it felt not unlike a cancer growing inside. It was horrible. The act of caring a bit too much is my vision ends up getting blurred and I have no idea what it was I was looking for in the first place. It's kind of akin to being an inexperienced web researcher. You go online and look up something very specific. There are 100's of hits. Not all of them have 100% relevance, but you go onto the site anyway. One path takes you to another. So if the search started with the bad effects of fluoride, say, you could by the end of 5 hours have accidentally entered yourself into a wet T-shirt contest in Utah. It's hard. Staying focused. For some. For me. So I've decided to let go.

Change is funny in most people. For me it's just a decision. I've decided to not care so much, and it sounds weird but it's working for me. I'm happier. I can love my friends more because I expect absolutely nothing from. And I can acknowledge all the love they can muster up for me. It's hard for most people to demonstrate love of all denominations. I'm a bit gifted in that realm. It's a good gift. So I think I'm helping, which is really good. And it feels really good. So that's good. Whole lotta good in a paragraph.

God... I Hope I Don't Sound Insensitive, But...

My yoga instructor Todd asked me to read an article from last Saturday's Globe and Mail. It described his friend Pete who died last summer and the circumstances involving the accident. One of his friends wrote the article.

The cause of his horrific demise, a boating accident last summer in the Muskoka's. The article was a eulogy, and a plug against bad boating procedures - alcohol, rich kids in their 20's staying up for too long and a general lack of care.

Todd told me Pete had a thousand friends.

Wow.

I don't have a thousand friends. I find eight are hard to maintain sometimes.

Pete was a "golden boy". Born into wealth, developed and honed the lifestyle, had friends in the same snack bracket. He worked on Bay Street. At the age of 27 he had won awards for entrepreneurial "zeal". Whatever that means. Why is my gut saying he ripped people off. Oh, the business of usury. Or I could be completely wrong and he was the only man on Bay Street who was the Patron Saint of giving people that don't have enough money, more money. I suspect not, though. No one gets pretigious awards on Bay St. for being fair. They get them for getting as much money as they can get their hands on. Everyone wins. Sometimes.

In his spare time Pete surfed. He and buddies would drive all night to far off US destinations, spend dough on some choice accomodations and... well, surf. Or ski. Or do other activities kids of wealth do.

I didn't really feel sorry for Pete. Not really. Yes, he went horrifically. For that I do feel sorry. I feel sorry that Todd lost his best friend. I don't know what I'd do without mine. I think I don't feel sorry for him because nothing bad ever happened to him. He probably never broke anyone's heart. He was never want for anything. He had an enviable relationship with his immediate family. He had hordes of supporters. All of his friends were good looking. The dude's life was a beer commercial. It was picture perfect. It was as if all the things that normally go wrong in other peoples lives were all stored up for him in that one moment when he just got shredded by a boat and motor.

He did live large and that's important. I think that's important to everyone. Whatever "large" means to an individual. What I liked most about the article was that one of his best friends, who also worked on Bay Street, ended up quitting his job and starting a painting business with his own brother, wanting out of the "rat race".

Somehow this gives me hope for humanity.

Yoga: My Sweet Sweat Inducer

My foray into yoga started years ago. Yoga if done properly, and by this I mean diligently, earnestly and with the fullest of breath, is many things. I think two of the best things about yoga is it's a barometer for how you're *really* feeling and it's a massive transformative tool. Starting with Kundalini, I progressed into Ashtanga (for Type A personalities) and now I'm practicing Bikram.

Bikram yoga involves a series of classic and not so classic yoga postures, but done in a heated room. Through radiant panelling the instructor can control temperature and humidity, with the exception of extremely hot and humid conditions outside that may seep indoors. There are *buckets* of water loss. Through my experience there are kind and gentle instructors who guide classes with love yet authority and there are nasty $#%!s that lead with both stifling heat, extreme humidity and either a dictatorial tone or a stilted lead.

[An aside: This beer I'm drinking sucks. Carlsberg Light. Thanks Mere.]

Back to Bikram. Nearly each time I finish practice I tend to say, "That was the best yoga experience of my life!" There are exceptions to the rule. Please see paragraph describing nasty $#%!s . Tonight's class was, I have to say, though fear sounding redundant, the best yoga experience of my life!

What makes yoga so different from one day to the next is directly linked to how different we are from one day to the next. One day we might be upset over something that happened at work. Another day there may have been something said to a friend that could have used a bit more diplomacy. Maybe I had a righteous day. Maybe not. Tonight I forced myself to go. Half of me wanted to, the other half just wanted to surf the net. I could feel my ass flattening, so I packed my bag. Todd was leading the class.

I love Todd.

Todd and Julie are my favourite instructors. My love for them is equal. Todd's got this great surfer dude meets radio announcer's voice. Unlikely but true. Julie is simply one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen. Both are gentle, knowledgable yet make you challenge yourself. This is a desirable effect.

I'd been doing research, writing and planning an event throughout the day. All three activities were incredibly grounding. I felt good emotionally, but I really wanted to test my emotional/spiritual barometer by going to yoga. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we're fine, but there are issues that crop up every now and then. Doing breathwork really helps get down to the nitty-gritty of what we're really feeling.

I believe there is truth in emoting, but where the ultimate truth lies is in the breath. The poses don't hurt, either. In the first pose, I can't remember what it's called. You interlock your fingers, pull them down as far as they'll go in front of you then inhale audibly while extending your hands up, over your head, shoulders relaxed. Then you place your hands in prayer position, exhaling with a loud "haa" sound until they pass your heart, then back to interlocking the old fingers, back to position 1. Some guy choked on his spit at one time. Somehow I thought this was hilarious. I don't know why. I think I just needed to laugh.

Once upon a time I wasn't crazy about back bends. They used to hurt. They open the heart shakra, the bits of us that allow all feelings to potentially emerge. You stand on your knees, place your hands, fingers facing down, on the top of your bum, pull up with your chest, stretch your neck up and back, pulling the shoulders back and falling backwards, grabbing your feet. This action tends to allow emotions that we have kept hidden inside to seep out. We tend to feel things either during or directly after pose. There have been times I've sobbed after doing it. Tonight I was beaming.

How could a person whose heart was allegedly broken 3 days ago possibly beam after that? Well, I felt like I hadn't smiled for a while. This is unusual for me. I felt lucky. I felt that I took advantage of a situation bravely and with honour. And the most marvellous of all, I felt like I understood what I was supposed to do on this earth. I was simply supposed to love people. I understood at that moment this was my job.

Yoga keeps me honest. Yoga keeps me nice. Yoga manages the yuck in my life and the weird that I sometimes feel. It made me quit my job. It made me take the summer off. It will bring me back to work soon, though. Yoga made me understand fully that the only constant is change. Oh, and change is good.

The Beautiful Stuff You Find Online...

I found this while doing some research on life and love and stuff of general lusciousness. It's sooo good.

~*~ A TIME AND A REASON ~*~

Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away they were meant to be there... to serve some sort of purpose, teach you a lesson or help figure out who you are/want to become. You never know who these people may be but when you lock eyes with them, you know that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way.

And sometimes things happen to you at a time that may seem horrible, painful and unfair, but in reflection you realize that without overcoming these obstacles you would have never realized your potential, strength, or will power.

Everything happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good luck, illness, injury, love, lost moments of true greatness, all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road to nowhere. Safe and comfortable but dull and utterly pointless. The people you meet affect your life. The successes and downfalls that you experience can create who you are, and the bad experiences can be learned from. In fact, they are probably the most poignant and important ones.

If someone hurts you, betrays you or breaks your heart, forgive them because they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart.

If someone loves you, love them back unconditionally, not only because they love you, but because they are teaching you to love and to open your heart, and eyes to little things.

Make every day count, appreciate every moment and take from it everything that you possibly can, for you may never be able to experience it again.

Let yourself fall in love, break free and set your sights high.

Hold your head up because you have every right to. Tell yourself you are a great individual and believe in yourself, for you don't, no one else will believe in you.

Create your own life and then go out and live it.

If you take your eyes off your goals, all you see are obstacles.


~~ Unknown Author

I'm Not Easy, I'm Just Easily Swayed

Okay, so am I flaky because my heart is no longer broken? See, this harkens a query from a preceding blog which questioned my love for all nine of the men I claimed to love. I'm filled with questions today.

Did he come along to ease my pain from missing David so much? Was Jeremy there in the month of July when the seers thought David would come back, designed to make me consider and reevaluate exactly what it was I needed this time, instead of constantly succumbing to the needs and wants of the men, as I traditionally do? As Psychic Kim said, "He's coming back, but I'm not sure whether you'll want him again." Yeah. Me neither. I did listen to the tape today though.

The last time I saw Psychic Kim I'd brought in a tape recorder. (I'd much rather have a DAT, but it works, so why allow something to A) unnecessarily collect dust or B) contribute to landfill issues.) I now have this tape that has two different, yet very similar readings on it performed by two psychics. They all say he's coming back. I think Jeremy came by during the time where I'd reached the end of my tether and where I'd missed intimacy so much that every fiber of my being was screaming out for the kind of attention I'd needed for the past two years plus.

He raised the bar on the standards I'd loosely set when considering a potential union of two. I tend to solely consider the individual and the direct correlation he has with my heart. The rest of the stuff is irrelevant, really. I mean, I don't care what he does for a living, if he has a car, if he has a house, stuff in general. Never really mattered to me. I liked his careful, though. I think I liked that the best. That and he was honest.

I was not careful. Careful's not really an adjective used to describe me. I need to feel stuff all the time. I don't care what it is: tragic, euphoric, angry, and (sweetly rare) jealousy. I was never too concerned that I cried. Crying is truth for me. It's an opportunity to examine things and to know that I care deeply about things. About people.

Sweetly rare jealousy. Hmm. David was the only person that ever, in any recent memory, inspired jealousy in me. I never felt that while with Mike, husband of 7 1/2 years. Never. I don't think a little jealousy is a bad thing, though. A bit of it means they mean something to you. The possibility of them being taken away is potentially devastating. Maybe that's what I need. Dunno.

Maybe the universe has some grand design for me. It inherently knows I'm terrible with remembering lessons that were learned too easily. So, it threw in a little havoc. I was merely an outpatient in the cardiac ward. All the aortas still functioning. Just a little angina, or indigestion in the grand scheme of heart break. Just so sweet, the pain. I wrote to my friend Meredith, "Every now and then it's good to be a bit shattered. It puts this delicious tragedy in your life, which in the end enriches it.

I think I freak people out.

Sometimes I freak me out, in retrospect. But then I'll read a magazine article while having lunch and there's something in there that will absolutely speak to my soul and cause me to put my fork down, though my mouth is open, it cannot receive food.

From Richard Wollheim's Germ: A Memoir of Childhood, an excerpt found in the August 2004 issue of Harper's Magazine:
"...women could love, they could fall in love, they could be in love, they could be lovesick. They could *feel*. Sometimes, after a man and woman who had come down to the house for lunch had driven off, one of my parents would say, not exactly to the other, for that was not how they talked, but more into the surrounding air: 'Why does she go on doing it? What does she get out of it? When will she settle down? Why is she throwing away the best years of her life?' If only, I would feel, these questions had been asked of me, I, though not able to put it into words, would have had much to say. I would have begun by saying that these were women, something that my father had never been and perhaps something that my mother had forgotten how to be, and I would then have gone on to say that, for women, for some women at least, love, love in itself, love unrequited, love that did not even seek for anything in return, in other words the pure culture of love, could be a way of life."

And then I smile to myself,
an inward and outward smile,
singular,
alone
but not lonely
and I feel good.

Went the Distance

I want to get this while I have it fresh on my plate.

I had made a resolve to fight for him. I'd felt like he'd been let down a great deal in life by others and I felt it my responsibility to care for him because I loved him. But the love for him was the kind that was sweet, familiar, deep but more in a special, special friend way.

I remember reading his profile and thinking, "Why don't I already know this person? He seems like someone I'd already be friends with." But I wasn't yet and then I became one. And then he was wonderful, as they tend to be in the beginning, but in the end it was disappointing. As my friend Meredith said, "Best it happened now versus six months from now." Apparently there is a direct mathematical formula which describes the amount of time needed to heal a broken heart vs. the time spent loving someone. It had only been just over two weeks after all.

Ah, I'm reminded of Chet Baker right now. Chet sang, "I fall in love too easily. I fall in love too fast. I fall in love too terribly hard for love to ever last." That seems to be a recurring problem in my life. Oh, and fucking Chet killed himself. Would that there was something that I could sustain for a while that was almost tepid. If not tepid, then maybe a slow trickle. I don't know what I'm racing for. I have no idea what my hurry is. It just happens. I get so caught up in the passion of the moment and expect that everyone is exactly the same as me, feeling exactly what it is I'm feeling. But they're not, evidentally. So here I am. No real mission again. Alas. I wish I knew exactly why. But maybe I don't really want to know. A little mystery is good. I think the mission is to concentrate on what it is I need to do, to be.

I'm so close.

I found myself going through the same pulls as I did before. I had decided not long ago that the next time was going to be different. It wasn't all that different. I did spend more time with friends this time, which was good. But the rest of it, the all consuming bits were still fragments of my old self. Can you help those, though? Is there that much of yourself that you can change? I want to know.

Maybe I have a love addiction. Geez. That was hard to write. I don't remember feeling that gross angst before, but they tend not to break up with me. It's usually the other way around. And maybe it's the preparedness of a situation. He had prepared himself for this at least a couple of days in advance. I had absolutely no preparation at all. Just typically flying by the seat of my pants. Again. Sigh.

The worst part of it is I can't listen to half of my music library right now without thinking of him.

The best part is he's had the foresight I'd always lacked. In the end he was right.

I don't really have that list of requirements that need to be filled when looking for someone. It's just a feeling. A connection. It's always different, ever unique. I have to remember the time spent with him. It's very important that I remember the time. He was very special and I have to be able to have that kind of special the next time around. He gave me hope that something really good could exist. I have to know that, to remember that.

So there were good things that came out of this:
1. I got to really care about someone again; something I love to do.
2. I now have to examine whether this is a serious problem in my life, the whole love addiction thing.
3. I know who my friends are.
4. We were very good friends and eventually we will be great friends. Just not yet. Still some more healing to do.

The Pecking Order

I don't know where it starts. Maybe at birth. The pecking order. The roles we end up playing throughout our lives. I was the last child born in a family of four children.

In my family as well as others the eldest child was expected to lead the others, to be an example. The second child if, God help him/her is born the same sex as the eldest that child will always live in the shadow his predecessor. I was the baby. They don't really expect much from the baby, especially when the baby laughed all the time and developed a special knack in the dispensing of wedgies.

I came from a strangely traditional Chinese family. I say strangely because both parents came from China, both from rural areas, at a fairly young age. They were in their late teens to early twenties. A new land. No sense of real belonging, only a need to assimilate and not draw too much attention to themselves. They were, not fully understanding the culture of their heritage, not fully integrating into Canadian culture either, effectively lost between two worlds.

They started having children right away. Dad didn't really wait the appropriate amount of time before impregnating Mom again. This happened 3x in a row. Siblings Vince, Walter and Eunice were born in consecutive years starting from 1960.

Eunice was the youngest and the only girl for six years of her life. And she REALLY liked it. I was born in 1968. I was a "mistake". There's a different kind of attention paid to girls by the father. There are less expectations, or just expectations in a different realm. More of chastity and familial responsibiltity, a care for the elderly agreement in blood sort.

Growing up in that time, in a fairly affluent neighbourhood, meant instilling the children with the iterated and reiterated idea that study was imperitive to success. Study led to the attainment of money and goods. Money = Goods = Success. As hard as they would study he would make them study harder because of their ethnicity. He convinced them that the world would not view their abilities and aptitudes based on their competence alone. The world would view the slant in their eyes and their general facial features first, relegating them to more subserviant positions based primarily on racial considerations.

I never got "the talk".

Competition became a primary characteristic among my siblings. Dad encouraged them to compete against each other. He'd often pit one sibling against the other, as if it was some morbid test for his love. And they were willing participants. At first they were scholastic competitions, then it trickled down to sports, then within childhood friendships where he would ask some poor unsuspecting neighbourhood kid who that kid liked better, this one or that one?

His own children.

Choose.

Eventually the competition seeped into their adult lives where the test would include how big their house was, in what neighbourhood, what kind of car was each driving, if you had a cottage, how many degrees were under your belt, how many tries it took you to get your driver's license. It was never the quality of your friendships that mattered, it was the quantity and how full your activities schedule was. How busy you were keeping yourself. Idle hands, the devil's playground.

All four of us are very different in personality. Vince is an accountant and it was as if he found some manual explaining how clichéd accountants behaved and he became that; think Eddie Murphy doing the White Guy skit from old Saturday Night Live episodes: uptight super-white guy, stiff, pickle firmly up ass, expressionless and cold. Publicly the prankster, laughing and smiling if he can make a buck off you. Privately silent.

Walter, super athlete and will tell anyone who has ears all about it, tendency toward violence, but is controllable. Funny, but prone to telling the same stories from his "glory years" in high school. Childlike. Was the apple of my eye growing up. Father thought all he would ever amount to was being a blue collar worker in a factory setting. Publicly the joker, privately the monster.

Eunice has been accused by my motherr of having "eyes on her forehead" because she looks down on people. Refuses to drive her car through certain neighbourhoods for fear of being robbed or raped. To her the robbing would probably be worse. Scholastically accomplished. Dreamed of being a professional student. Always publicly appropriate, privately caustic.

I am considered the "black sheep" of the family. Laughed louder than others felt was appropriate. Had a "talk" by my sister about not embarrassing her at her wedding. Feels shame too often. Is working on that. Is the "pot-stirrer" of the family. Truth speaker. Publicly obnoxious, but loving. Privately often unsatisfied.

In common we share the spirit of survival, showmanship, loyalty to our friends, competency, a profound difficulty to rely on others. We all have perfection issues within ourselves and often with others, a generous sprinkling of the gripping fear of looking ridiculous and are painfully aware of what others think of us.

Separately we have our own assigned roles. We all know that if Vince is confronted he will back down and relent, feeling embarrassed by other's outbursts, mostly because his own emotions embarrass himself. We all know that Walter will break something; a door or a heart. Currently he's estranged himself from the entire family. We know Eunice will deflect, spinning the argument in a totally different direction, leading the instigator to a confused state. She will likely try to be the victor at any cost. Myself? I used to cry but don't anymore. Not around them. They took too much away from me. Or I gave too much away at well below manufacturers list prices. After careful examination through therapy of many different varieties, excellent friendships and time I still feel the pull toward shame, but I hope I attack the issues as they are presented. It is my hope.

We still have funny pulls and triggers though.

The other night having cocktails, Jeremy and I were discussing movie going characteristics. I tend to see movies alone for a variety of reasons. He talks during movies, which I admittedly am not crazy about. I find it disruptive to my surroundings and wish not to do that to other people mostly because I don't like hearing whispers and muttering to my left (my good ear). It's louder to me than the movie is. (Apparently a classic ADD characteristic). He then said something about how loud I laughed and didn't I think that was disruptive to others? He meant nothing by this comment. I lost my mind. All the feelings of their attempts to minimise me came to the surface. [Tell her to be quiet. Tell her to be less, less than she is. She's not good enough. We just need to make slight alterations.]

We grow up and think we're grown-ups now. How could we possibly have the same pulls we did when we were kids. These same triggers. Lots of people have commented on the fact that my laugh is approximately 160 decibels (130 is the average pain threshold). But at that moment, maybe because he'd just dumped me I was feeling particularly vulnerable and extremely self-protective. At that exact moment all I felt was you cannot make comments or opine negatively about things a person cannot change. I suppose I could laugh softer. But I don't. And I won't. Anyway, he loved my laugh. I know this. Why did I take it that way? Fucking triggers in our most insecure moments. Will they ever die?

Along with these triggers, we have this innate sense of our duties and responsibilites. Our roles in society.

Eunice is the self-professed, self-imposed "Do-The-Right-Thing" girl. She always brings the appropriate hostess gift, she is highly skilled at small talk, she "presents" well; charming, effusive in the expected parts ie. nearly clawing her eyes out in utter amazement when the neighbouring Rosedale hostess at a dinner function has made, "by hand", ONE course in the evening's meal. She's got her own money and she rarely misses a day using it as a weapon against her husband, threatening to leave because she can "afford" to, taking her overcommitted 3-year-old twins with her, thus abandoning him.

I hate what money does to people. I hate what money did to my family. I want to deal in the currency of people. I want to make people think, to make them feel it's okay to feel what they're feeling. It's honesty, something that this society lacks so often.

Our roles as people are as unique as we as individuals are. There are caretakers, caregivers, nurturers, peace-makers, war-mongers, mother-in-laws (of the icky variety), hosts and hellspawns. To be brave is to take risks, risks out of one's own character. We should strive to do things that don't necessarily make us feel comfortable or come to us as easily as the stuff that was formulated and honed early on. Things that scare us a little... or a lot. It's liberating. I want to experience as much as I can so I can share my experiences with others. We are all linked universally. We've all felt loss. We've all felt the diverse, often debilitating, feelings of pain and suffering. And I hope upon hopes that we've all felt love.

I believe we all have a hidden resolve, a secret special superpower that lurks within all of us. The power that enables us to be most effective and do the most good. Maybe finding it and tapping into it is a goal we should always strive for, otherwise what's the point of living if we've got nothing to fight for. And why fight if we have nothing to believe in.

Seek your battle, but use your heart.

Something Changed

How do you deal with a broken heart? Is there some special formula, or are we reduced to just filling ourselves with loosely tested, overly prescribed blue pills, red pills? I think I'll forgo that, choosing to feel the genuine pain of love lost rather than the numbness of not feeling anything. Or worse, throwing myself into work, or just generally keeping busy, as they prescribe. "Are you keeping busy, dear?" Jam packing my itinerary has never been a solution to solving life's "little" problems. It sure takes our minds off things for a while, though. But, eventually we have to deal with things. Things like:

The two things I thought would never happen again:
1) I never thought I'd fall in love again.
2) I certainly didn't think I'd get my heart broken again.

But I guess that's the chance you take when you risk everything. It is the ultimate exposé, the final showdown, the opportunity to show everything you have in your secret cache and in one’s individual Pandora's Box.

All these people drinking lover's spit.
Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink.

As scared as I was to say it, in the end I did and I'm glad I did because I meant it and he really meant something very significant to me.

I love you.

And if it was said on the last night we were potentially to be together, that's alright, I can live with that. I know I did the best I could do and was the best I could be, given the circumstances of profound bad timing.

How can you compete with a ghost? No, she's not dead, but they spent 10 years together, during the very formative decade between the ages 20 - 30. She's moved on. A different life. Abandoning him. He the one who loved her so much. Maybe not romantically after all of those years, but certainly a familial love, that binding love, that blinding love that was ripped away from him before it was time. Before he was ready.

I'd said before how new love stirs things up. I counted this morning how many men I'd claimed to love in my relative short existence. Nine. How many did I truly love? Would walk to the ends of the earth for? Would sacrifice life and limb for? Not all. So maybe it wasn’t true love. That's always been a quest for me. True love and the possibility of its existence. Far more than seeing if God really exists.

I need to believe it does.

I'm puffy from crying, relenting finally this morning to remove the remains of the rivulet roadmap of mascara down my cheeks. A poor version of Alice Cooper. A sadder version, far less evil. I feel like I'm close to exhausting my friend pool for emotional support. I need guidance. Comfort. He needs the same. A sage that is empathetic, someone who can tell him he's not alone and what he's feeling is totally normal and in at least one time in our pathetic lives we've been hurt so badly that we can't distinguish waking life from a dream state, a surreality that doesn't make us want to feel anything, especially the pain we're feeling right now.

We search in vain for clarity. We need concise answers for the things we feel because they don't make any sense to us at all. "If only I could get my shit together...." We live in this world where there are always solutions to problems, or at least they work the bugs out the beta version with version 10.97. Things are packaged neatly in eye-pleasing colours and boxes. The whodunnit's villian eloquently and correctly accused discovered in the third act by the elegant detective with the Belgian accent, twirling his handlebar moustache, tapping his silver handled cane on the the parquet floor. But unfortunately the ways of the world don’t necessarily work that way.

At one time in my not so recent past, I wanted answers so desperately I went to see psychics (plural).

Fuck, I can still smell him.

Anyway, back to the psychics. I wanted to know about a certain fella I’d been with a few years back, then rekindled something several months ago. They all promised he would come back. And I was so patient. One of them prophecised there would be a choice I’d have to make, between him and another man. In the end she said I’d choose the one in first chronological order. But then I met Jeremy. Was he the other I’d have to choose from? Two days ago there was no choice. After being with Jeremy he really raised the bar in standards certification. The psychics didn’t tell me anything about him. He was a surprise. I think in my path I became happier not really knowing. The worst thing about being told your “future” is once you know about it you have this tendency to wait around for the future to happen. “Is it going to be today,” you ask yourself for the 14th consecutive time that day. “How about now?”

What is certain is uncertainty. What dispells fear is the choice to love again. And here on just that topic: the righteous chicks, the Bene Gesserit, from the movie Dune, delivering a little litany against fear:

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain. 

And I’m not talking perfect love, because again, perfection is unachievable and even if it wasn’t it would be pretty damned boring to have to face day after day. “Oh, here’s comes Perfect, again.” Tedious. Predictable. We’d resent it. Him.

Yes, I got hurt but that’s okay. I learned so much about myself during the entire, albeit brief process of loving someone new. And I got to love someone again. Someone really great. So, I consider myself lucky. [She said through gritted teeth as 1st runner-up, allowed to perform pageant-of-life duties only if the winner was unable].