Three windows open, three different conversations:
To PauLa: I miss you guys. Hows the house?
To dumb-fuck: I think dim sum is one big metaphor for life really
To scotfrot: mines a bit more involved. I would jerk off into them a couple times …then wash n wear them. I would get off on fantasizing about them doing their laundry…
I was going to qualify each conversation but I think I like them just as they are.
Airports at 6am are the most loneliest places on earth. I think thats when Brian Eno got his inspiration for his Album Music For Airports. I hated sending off Sharkboy to FLA for his weeklong cruise but with the death and weird monetary set backs I would not have been able to go (or at least I would have been a “laugh riot”, fer sher).
Wacthing Sharkboy try to check in and leave his wallet and passport on the counter was worrysome. He’s usually much more clearheaded than that and has probably travelled more than I. I hope he has a good time. I was pleased to hear that the company he works for upgraded his room on the cruise from an inside cabin to an outside cabin with port hole! Yay! I gave him strict orders to find me a lacquered frog.
Stepdad passed away last night. The bugger insisted on no service but Mum will be having a remembrance party sometime in the spring when things calm down.
So that’s my weekend salvaged.
Oh please. I’m kiddin.
Quite the kick in the gut today. Apparently my stepdad has the Big C.
Now…thats not all that much of a surprise really. He’s been smoking since he was 16 and he’s 83 now, and I feel bad for him, sitting in a hospital bed right now hooked up to morphine. But I feel even worse for my mum.
My mum. We’ve never been close her and I. When dad came out, she was cool to the kids and she turned to the man that would be pushing that morphine button right now. Her attitude towards me while the divorce came about was definetly hands-off. I was “my father’s son,” she told me once with a hint of malice in her voice. I dont blame her for anything really. She grew up Italian Catholic in 1930s Toronto (she would tell a story of having to learn how to ring chicken’s necks – ones they kept in the dirt floor basement in their Keele and somewhere-out-there house). Her parents were total immigrant Italians: proud, hardworking, alienated by their grandchildren who didnt speak a stitch of Italian, and expected the best for their children. They were so angry when mum announced the divorce but I dont think she went as far as to explain the true reasons why. Mum is exceedingly strong. Stubborn to a fault. And prone to the drama moment as moms are wont to do.
I call the hospital and get Stepdad’s room. Mum picks up and instantly is crying before I can tell her who’s calling. Stepdad is not expected to be with us by the end of weekend. Mom is strong but you know she’s hurting and I start blubbering and cant form intelligent words. I think I said “I dont evny you right now.”
Yeah I know. I can be pretty heartless sometimes.
I remember meeting Stepdad for the first time. I was so angry and mad that this guy was coming into our house and pissed that mom could be so insensitive. You got to remember that I was raised by TV so the whole thing was playing out like Family and I was Kristie McNicols. He is a tall man, shock white hair and craggly face. Thick English accent – he flew for the RAF. Widowed and probably bonded with mum on that level. Tried real hard to be nice and won me and my sibs over, but we were adults that came attached to mum and he showed us typical English affection. God bless ‘im for not opening his mouth when mum and I fought. He makes my mum happy and that made me happy. Both of them are smoking enablers. When I think of visiting my mum with Stepdad, I think of overflowing ashtrays and crossword puzzles in a sprawling semi-bungalow outside of town. He never ever spoke up about da. The closest he got was when I announced my homosexuality to them and he said something like “good on ya!” or somesuch encouraging phrase. I know he was uncomfortable but he was accepting.
Is. Is accepting. I havent got the call yet.
So my sister is in Brockville now with mum and she is in full on control, much to the relief of the rest of the family. She works for the Calgary General and speaks the lingo. Mum on the phone: “Your sister speaks a different language! I am greatful she’s here.”
As am I.
Sharkboy and I have decided to give it one more go. I am, of course, 25% relieved, 77% happy and 5% bad at math. I need to stop being so giving and more vocal when things start to pile up in the trash thats inside my head. We’re going slow. And we’re going the “open relationship” route, with parameters and paradigm in place. I figure if my brother can do it, so can I. I consider it something new and worth of an attempt and in accepting it, I am excited… like getting a new credit card with $1000 limit on it. I trust Sharkboy and if he can come back to me after the way I treated him during the last blow up, then I know without a doubt that he loves me.
Now to more trivial things: It would seem that George Lucas did something right.
I watched THX 1138 last night and was suitably impressed with the work Mr Lucas did on his film. THX is the perfect example of how going back into a technically flawed, yet interesting piece of work and digitally remastering it can create a superior product. I can feel some of you get your backs up as I type this, but its true. THX is light in story (Mr Lucas admits to not being able to write a script, in the DVD extras – Ha! He admits it! Now apologize for Episode I!!) and borrowsome from prefab ideas (Brave New World, 1984), yet the movie is so tactile and stark that you get the sense that you’re going to leave eyeprints on it if you watch it. Now it’s even moreso with the remastering. And Ive forgotten how creepy Donald Pleasance was.
The additions just work, not like the excessive reworking in Star Wars Episode IV. None of the additions feel like they were mechanically inserted for the sake of visiual masturbation (…if you’ve seen the remastered THX, you’ll get that joke) and mesh seamlessly. They actually advance and enhance the film to a respectable level, but the only people who will see this film will be geeky basement dwelving nerds and Klingon makeup wearing convention goers.
And me, of course.
I havent watched Episode IV yet and want to see if George has fixed that dreadful “Han Solo stepping on Jabba’s tail” scene. That stank in it’s execution in the first run. I could do a better mixing job with iMovie.
Breaking up with someone sucks ass.
Okay lets jump past the whole drama singularity: the actual act of snapping your heart and theirs into 1 million unrecognizable pieces and look at post-breakup phenomeno… phenomanom… mystical stuff. What I like to call Emotional Land Mines. Its when you are constantly reminded of that person by small acts of memory triggers, such as a toy or a commercial or reaching across the couch and mistakenly, absent-mindedly taking your roommates hand while you watch TV. Yesterday I was walking through an emotional land mine field so dense that they were going off every minute or so, leaving me to sigh heavily and whispfully turn up my iPod to the saddest music I have (oh dont worry…I’ll post my song list when my emotional state gets worse…and it will). The Emotional Land Mine Fields size and density is proportional to the amount of time spent with your Ex. I suspect that since I was with mine for pretty much every day since Dec of last year, my Fields area will be small but the Mines will be extremely difficult to maneuver without blowing off my heart. The Triggers are like Viet Cong: blended well into the background that when you get close to one they jump out at you and plunge their pain encrusted dagger into your heart with a veracity that can rip tears from your eyes at the exact moment when your boss walks past your cube.
Whats even more pathetic is trying to use these emotional triggers again. I found myself typing an email yesterday and using a phrase that I would send my ex every so often and then writing out an explanation to the recipient as to why that phrase was funny. It sort of sounded like this blog post. Ah well…at least this is cathartic.
later that day…
Do you remember the 21st night of september?
Love was changing the minds of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away
Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing.
As we danced in the night,
Remember how the stars stole the night away
Ba de ya – say do you remember
Ba de ya – dancing in september
Ba de ya – never was a cloudy day
My thoughts are with you
Holding hands with your heart to see you
Only blue talk and love,
Remember how we knew love was here to stay
Now december found the love that we shared in september.
Only blue talk and love,
Remember the true love we share today
Ba de ya – say do you remember
Ba de ya – dancing in september
Ba de ya – never was a cloudy day
Ba de ya – say do you remember
Ba de ya – dancing in september
Ba de ya – golden dreams were shiny days
Its amazing how the heart works. I swear you would have to nail that fucking thing to the floor, pour gas on it and light THREE matches before it stops feeling.
camping you say? why no thank you,
I’ve already been. pics of the labour day weekend are up and ready for your amusement. (ed – long since deleted – try the gallery upper right hand side…)
I’m also reinstating DEADROBOT for shits and giggles. a couple flash items take forever to load so be patient, they were my first try with streaming SWF stuff. dont expect any updates soon as that I dont have a 3D modeling program anymore and I dont want to reuse the only remaining renderings I have of Ix over and over again like “The Curse of the Pink Panther”. be patient. if anyone wants to give me a copy full version of 3D Studio Max, I will give them a kidney or testicle in return.
sharkboy and I did a switcheroo with iPods last week. I got him a pink mini and took back the 15G that I got for him originally. Kenny the friend went ballistic when we told him calling me a “native Canadian first nations spirited person-giver” (maybe not all those PC descriptive words, but you get the drift. Sharkboy was extremely happy with the trade so it was win/win.
man o man do I love iPods. not too sure if I can successfully operate the 4th gen click wheel yet though, sharkboy won’t let me play with his…
Who here has had their parents say something about sex that just makes you cringe to full fetal position and want you to become a monk? Raise your hands. I see.
The last two times Ive had dinner with my Da (72yrs old, is about 60 physically, 16 mentally) he’s done that to me. The first time he ranted on about extra strength Viagra and how much fun a weekend could be again. Then last night he’s telling me and Sharkboy about this project he wants to start working on about collecting stories of older gay men having sex. That’s cool. Then we start talking about the Old Simpsons Building at Queen and Yonge Streets.
Its now The Bay’s flag ship store but back in the day Simpsons was a multi level department store that was built in the 1600s or 1821 or some such year. Its old. Recently it was used in the movie Cinderella Man as the front of Madison Square Gardens so you can guess its about 1920s or so. Anyway. Dad use to sell shoes in the basement right next to the men’s washrooms. I bet you can see where this is going. Back then Gay was only heard in Noel Coward plays and songs and Dad, being the oldest to an Irish Catholic family of 7, he was quite closeted. Or tea-roomed if you will. Its one thing to be conscious of your parents indulging in sex. That fact sits in our minds like the thought of having to pay taxes or mowing the lawn: there but ignored. Its another thing to hear your father talk about risky sex with strangers in toilets. Especially when you’ve done it yourself and thought it dirty and bad and here’s the man you admire freely admitting it.
As a particular side note to this whole thing: I get on at the Queen St subway station when I go to work and wind up standing in front of the Simpsons building mural on the platform, sub consciously making some connection with my dad back in his day. Ive said before that life is cyclic, even in small circles.