Category Archives: Personal Bits

Just things from my personal life

A Thanks to My Brother

Favorite, Personal Bits, Queer stuff

I’ve been reading and posting to lots of blogs both conservative and liberal about the Same Sex ruling. Here’s my two cents into the fray:

bro, second from left

See that? Second in from the left? That’s my brother back in the late 70s getting ready to go out into a cold Toronto winter night (note the ski gloves on one of the Sisters). He would answer questions regarding homosexuality, health, religion, and guilt. On the rare occasion, he would be chased, yelled at, belittled and on the rare occasion, threatened bodily harm. He did this to make the world he lived in a better place for lesbians and gays.

Last December, as fruits of his labours …ripened… he and his partner Mark got married. He is a shining example that change will happen for those with patience, intelligence and dedication. I’ve said before that I am greatful for his work and many gays, lesbians and transgendered owe him a rather unpayable debt.

While I am still quite confused as to why some gays would want to join an antiquated belief system that shuns them in the first place, I realize that this law is a way to pull the church’s rather obvious disregard for human rights into the public spotlight and illicit change. Despite the “Ew! I dont wanna!” clause built into it. For some homosexuals, this new law is an excuse to plan a party. For others, it’s a harbinger for further rights and acceptance in a heterosexual society. I’m in that camp. If I were to get married, I would have a small civil ceremony and then 6 weeks later, fleece Sharkboy for half is amazing movie collection.

Just kidding.

For the crazed, angry conservatives out there, I can only say: this morning, as I went to work I didnt pass any shirt-tearing riots, the earth didn’t crack open and swallow me up, there wasn’t any debauched llama-loving in the streets, or yakkety burning bushes. However, I did see a couple outside an office building kissing goodbye and parting ways before going off to their jobs.

Oh wait. That was me and Sharkboy.

But this time, I felt like I didnt have to feel anything other than the comfort that the kiss goodbye was meant to offer me. Just like you’ve enjoyed all your adult life.

Sound it Out

Personal Bits

Just in from an ultrasound, kiddies! Apparently my last blood test suggested an “enlarged liver” so my Doc, ever cautious, ordered me to the lab.

Upon entering the lab at St George’s Medical Arts Building, I had to wait until the receptionist had finished with her conversation to a friend on her cell. Normally I would have been upset with a wait like this but her conversation (which she meant for me to hear) was one of desperation. She was trying to find a home for a border collie that had been abused by her neighbours. She asked me instantly if I wanted him. I don’t and she tells me of the struggle this dog has had. She seems like a caring sort, confirmed when she confesses to having 4 cats and one dog already.

I was ushered into the changing cubicles where surprise sooprize, I had the same technician doing my scan as the last time I was there a few years back for a lump. In my boob. (Her words. Slowly. Hushed. Conspiratory: “Is the lump. In you boob…gone?”) So instantly she was friendly and chatty, taking a moment to laugh at the big BUTCH pin on my knapsack. “Nothing but underwear, socks and shoes. Put this robe on backwards and this one on forwards. I don’t want you wandering the hall bare butt.” I remember how much I liked her the first time.

Into the scanning suite. Up goes the gown and a sheet of paper towel is tucked into and draped over my underwear. I lie down and she grabs the KY in squeezy bottle.

“Do you have BBQ flavour?” I ask as she covers my hairy chest and belly with the thankfully warm lube.

“HA! There’s a first,” she comments.

She can’t stop asking about my lump she looked at two years ago. She meekly raises her ultrasound wand and ask “Can I look at your… boob… with my… wand?” I let her. All clear. She’s happy.

She slips her wand over my right side. I start to laugh. She starts to laugh. “Sorry. It always kills me when big biker dudes like yourself giggle when I touch them. Can you take out your belly ring?”

In walks the Dog Savior receptionist with the Wand Waving Tech’s next appointment file, resulting in joking banter about hiding my underwear with the paper towel. “What’s he got under there?” The Dog Savior asks, pointing at my Bounty covered BVDs. These two have sussed me out in seconds.

“A cat,” I say. First thing into my head since she’s a dog lover.

“I think we’re the ones with cats,” says the Wand Waver.

Hilarity ensues.

The Wand Waver digs her sensor into my abdomen and makes clucking sounds. “Can’t you find it?” I ask.

I get a playful dirty look. “Oh, I’ll find it,” she says.

After a time she tells me that I have a “horseshoe kidney”, a conjoined kidney, which is rare but not surprising. She’s snapping pictures of my innards all this time and we move on to the liver, the star of the show. I ask for a nice 8×10 colour or at least wallet sized photos.

“Now see, you were original before with the BBQ,” she says.

Riddle Me This, Batman

Favorite, Personal Bits

What’s the one thing that makes you try to remember every little detail you experienced from shower to office desk.

Easy!

Discovering your fly being down.

Like mine was, all morning.

No wonder that woman froze up when I sat beside her on the subway.

Well I’ve done more embarassing things. Like forgetting to take off that

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…sticker off the leg of my new-bought pants.

Speaking of which: why do straight guys never take off the small white cotton loops that hold the tags on new jeans?

Pain

Personal Bits

Back to the gym, my doctor cries! And lo, Sharkboy and I find ourselves working out at the mansweaty, loud, well designed, “try not to look at your sauna-neighbour’s dink tattoo” arena of masculinity called the Downtown Y. We’ve been twice since the ink has dried on our goofy pass pictures and I’ve been going easy but despite holding back, my arms, shoulders and manboobies are pained by all the lactic acid I made this weekend. My hand slides across the desk to my tea, instead of reaching for it.

It’s been 3 years since I’ve been working out and I find that I am sleeping deeper despite not being able to lift my arms to turn myself over. Also, my general mood has changed: I dont want to bring a high powered rifle into the office and I actually welcome work on my desk this morning (still hate the place and have every intention of being someplace different inside two months). Most importantly, I dont feel that working out is a chore. It’s goal driven (200lbs here I come!) and fun, especially with Sharkboy there.

Last night, after Tom had got his million, Kobe paraded the image of his daughter out in front of the cameras like a Joan Crawford news reel, and we were snuggled deep into Sharkboy’s couch, I looked up at him and realized that I had a real satisfying weekend. “I love you,” I said smiling.

He jabs me in my aching pecs. OW!

Cheese… Check!

Personal Bits

Long day yesterday, ending in my Da’s birthday dinner. 73 years old and I still see him as a 50 yr old tail-chasing authority figure. He tells me that he’s going to get rid of the car (which is now only accessable by the passenger side, something is wrong with the driver’s door). Oh to have a higher paying job. While typing that last bit I felt somewhat trailer-trashy but he’s getting around fine without it and it’s just “a drain on the inheritance” as he says.

I get home and lift my man-bag off my shoulders to see *ZIP* a small black smudge move in my periferal vision. Did I just see a mouse? Yes. I did. It tried to climb up over my cables by the TV. Now, I’m no caricature of some 50’s housewife screaming on a chair, but I did feel uneasy about walking ’round my apartment barefooted. I called the Super this morning and told them about the little guy.

Apparently a mouse requires a work order to be filled out. I am glad that they’re sticklers about not entering your unit without permission (I bet they’ve been burned in the past) but couldn’t they just slip the sticky trap under the door or something?

To take my mind off my furry squatter, a friend showed me the as-not-yet-aired Family Guy episode that will be shown this Sunday. Fans will not be disappointed. The formula is unchanged: Terriffic Jeppetto and Pinoccio visual joke. Tom Tucker’s upsidedown face kid! The evil monkey in the closet! Jasper. the extremely creepy old guy from Chris’ paper route! The animation quality seems to have been raised a tad and best of all: Stewie and Brian ARE BACK! Brilliant writing for these two characters makes them deserving of their own show.

Moi? Mutant?

Personal Bits

The last week I have been waking up at 5:30am every morning without fail. I will sit there in the dark and wonder what woke me. Is it because of the new, unfamiliar apartment? No, I’ve slept a couple nights at Sharkboy’s and still woke at the same time. Are aliens abducting me and probing me at the same time every morning? I checked my PJs. No.

Then I read that I might be a mutant (from BoingBoing). How creepy to have this defect. I suspect Sharkboy and Swollen Uvula both have this mutant gene as that their sleep patterns are certainly not like your average “sleep from 11pm to 7am” kind of person. Sharkboy is in bed by 10pm every night (except the odd weekend) which I find super early, and he rises just after 6am without the need of an alarm. Meanwhile, Swollen could be in bed by 3am and up by 7am, then the next night he would be asleep by 11pm and up by 5am… you get the drift. Wildly erratic, without being grumpy (I love that excuse for being grumpy: not enough sleep. It’s so childish and I use it at work all the time).

I once stopped dating a really great guy because of his sleep apnea. I would lie awake making sure he was ok, nudging him every time he took longer than a second to breathe in. My biggest fear is waking up beside a dead body.

I find that I dont have a “regular” bed time either, due to the internet and time-shifting on my digital cable box. And IFC channel. And my PS2. Distractions of the flesh, really.

Fantasy #234b

Personal Bits

I want aliens to come down to earth and provide us all one mutant/super power. The catch is that it has to be lame, really lame. I would become Captain Swirlo and would have my chest hair exposed through a hole in my tights. My special power is to vaguely hypnotize my enemies by swirling my chest hair in a singular direction. By “vaguely” I mean that I can manipulate their minor choices during the day. “Tuna fish for luuuuunch! Tuna fish for luuuuunch!”

My nemesis would be Tooclose, a dastardly villain that has the power to walk behind me too close and get me pissed off while I’m trying to have a conversation with a friend.

You can tell I think this crap up in the shower.