Not dead.

It's been a while.

***

From time-to-time I am overcome with the memory of an artist who lived in a flat on Brock Street in Peterborough circa 1995. At the time he painted abstract nudes on unstretched canvases with black and white oil house paint. I think his name was Steven or Stephen. He graduated from OCA in the 1980s. He was beautiful and troubled. 

He is one of the few people I regret not sleeping with. 

I wonder what happened to him. I wonder if he lived, or if he’s online. 

***

And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

 I've been writing for a couple of days. Working on using my voice. Working on the present, active voice.

Working to be better.

Life wrap-up - Debrief - Part 2 of an Indeterminate Amount of Blog Posts

I'm only writing this today because of four people. Well, six if you include my parents who got it on just shy of 40 years ago leading to my birth 40 weeks later, but I digress.

I'm here today because I once had a best friend. A best friend who needed my help, and she said she would help me.

I'm here today because I flirted with a man on the internet and I wanted to find out if the online attraction worked out in real life.

***

On September 20, 2003 I got on an airplane. I had a few thousand dollars, a one-way ticket on a now-defunct airline that offered the aviation equivalent of Greyhound, and I had hope that something would be different.

My best friend and I would stop speaking the following March, and would not see each other again for five years. 

I'm here today because an ex-partner let me move in with him after we broke up because he realized that we didn't break up because we couldn't live together, and having someone splitting the rent and bills with was better than going it alone.

The online flirtation turned into a 15 month on-again, off-again, something or other. It ended with me screaming "Lose my number, pretend that I am dead." into the phone on Boxing Day afternoon, 2004.

10 months after that fateful bubble bath of rage and fury, I would marry a man I met online just days before that break-up telephone conversation. 

I didn't know that then. I didn't know that man's last name then. In that moment, I didn't know if I would ever speak to him again.

I would leave my ex-partner's apartment to move in with my spouse; just three doors down.

I'm here today because I met a man and the only way we could be together was to get married.

***

Ten years ago today I spent my first day in BC. Breakfast and coffee in North Vancouver. We visited 29th and a Half beach in West Vancouver because I had never seen the ocean, I got my first piece of beach glass there. Then we had more coffee and patio time at Bean Around the World in Ambleside. I was ridiculously dressed for West Vancouver. In hindsight, that should have been my first clue that where I had moved was not the big city I'd been hoping for. In hindsight, I am pretty sure that my "something or other" was kind of embarrassed by me. In hindsight, I was hopeful that something would be different.

***

So much has changed in ten years that I don't even recognize the person who got off that plane in 2003. I'm no longer a redhead. I no longer use $30 hair goop. I no longer wear stompy boots, or go clubbing, or drink 6 double shot lattes before 4 PM and smoke a pack a day.

***

As terrible as my first year in BC was, and as not quite as terrible as my last year was, I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I got on that plane. I'm glad that I loved two people enough to trust them, even if that trust ended up being a little misguided. I'm glad that I went to Bowen Island. I'm glad that I went to the parties, clubs, and The Cambie. I'm glad that I dressed ridiculously for West Vancouver, North Vancouver and Vancouver Vancouver. I'm glad that I bought yoga pants, and Gore-Tex fleece jackets, and learned to buy jackets with hoods and stop using umbrellas.

As much as I miss the weather, I am glad I don't live there. As much as I miss functional public transit, cheap and plentiful sushi, edible Indian food, and conveniently located amenities, I'm happy we left.

Edited to add the sentence that should have closed this post:

I miss my friends, but I'm relieved to be away from the place that never quite fit.

This time last year

Today marks the first anniversary of the last time I saw my maternal grandmother alive.

She was mostly incoherent, and at times I'm not sure she remembered who I was. She was happy most of the time. In an instant she would change to horribly angry then to weeping sadness and then back again.

My grandma, the grandma from two years before she went into the home, was awesome.

The woman who died in December 2012 was just a shell of her former self. I don't miss her. I'm glad that that woman is out of pain, no longer a victim to her failing cardiovascular system that stole her mind.

I miss my grandma, a lot. I wish I could talk to her.

Magic Mike

I watched Magic Mike, the epic film by acclaimed American director Steven Soderberg, on the flight from Vancouver to Toronto. Air Canada made this possible by giving each seat its own screen.

That Channing Tatum is one charming motherfucking pig.

***

I never have cash, but I got some for my trip. In doing so I finally put my hands on one of the new polymer $20 bills.

I think the Queen looks angry.

***

This morning I tucked the twenty in the waistband of my husband's boxer-briefs. He didn't even grind me.

I think I want my money back.

The Beginning

A  couple of days ago I did one of those memes that go around Facebook from time to time.

“Justin gave me the age 25. These are the three things that aren't really secrets, but not many people know about them.

I was dating a crack-head con-man who went to jail for stealing our neighbour's car, stealing our roommate's credit card, defrauding several department stores and double-doctoring.I wanted desperately to believe that god would save my life.I was on welfare.

Comment and I'll give you a year to share three secrets about.”

A couple of friends were very surprised about the second entry. Given what they know about me now their surprise is natural. But me at 25 and me over 30 (when I met both these friends) were two different people. I think further explanation is in order.

When I was 25 I wanted desperately to believe that god would save my life. That was 1999. A year later, things were different.

I don’t remember exactly what day it was, but it happened mid to late 2000. My “boyfriend” had just been sentenced to 28 months in prison for a string of charges related to his interest in taking other people’s property and using them to purchase illegal drugs.

At the time I was convinced that I had been damaged beyond redemption from several years of alcohol and drug abuse. I was a non-meeting-attending member of a 12-step “fellowship” where I was being told that if I could just “get the program” and “develop a relationship with the god of my understanding” I would be happy and my relationships would be good.

Even in typing that I feel like an idiot.

So what I was doing was a lot self-help using writing and getting peer support from a few self-identified substance abusers and trying to keep up a solo neo-pagan religious practice while in a relationship with a status obsessed, drug abusing, Jewish convert who thought I was worshipping the devil and telling too much of our business to my friends.

The crazier our relationship got the more I kept praying that god would just end the insanity. I would pray and light candles and cast spells and lay down on the floor in the fetal position and just cry, waiting for god to fix this fucking *thing* and make it right.

The only thing that I knew for sure was you have to believe that EVERYTHING is god’s will or NOTHING is god’s will... you don’t get to pick and choose. People who chose and picked the will of god were not being intellectually honest about what god could do in their lives. (The irony of that statement is not lost on me, by the way.) If life was still crazy it must be because I didn’t believe enough or god wanted me to learn something or maybe god thought that this was the best I could ever do.

I didn’t believe that god would save my life. I wanted to believe that god would save my life. I wanted that more than anything and I would do whatever the believers in my life told me to do to get god to do that. So I continued praying. I continued writing. I continued lighting candles and casting spells, consulting cards and casting rune stones. Every night I ended up in the fetal position on the floor in tears. Clearly I was doing something wrong.

But on that day shortly after I insured that my crazy boyfriend was settled into the minimum-security correctional institution where he was to serve one-third of his sentence before being considered for day parole. I had shipped him some of his stuff and visited him enough times to convince him that he should not “escape” from prison and just do his time, I made one decision.

I decided to stop seeking god.

I wrote the crackhead boyfriend a “Dear John” letter.
I convinced the person I was living with to tell him I had moved out and lied to him about where I was living.
I moved to another town.
I cut all my hair off, I bought a suit and a pair of heels and I went and landed an interesting job.

Months later I realized that my life got better the minute after I stopped praying for god to fix my life and made a decision to actually do something. From that day forward I started questioning the idea of god.

I would not utter the word Atheist for another two years but this was the beginning.

Thanksgiving Weekend

This weekend is so lame. It has brought back memories of The Best Thanksgiving Ever (aka The Carson Incident)

Due to the publication ban I can't share the details of the evening here, but suffice to say it's a pretty badass story. According to one of the participants, the story is so badass that when she tells it people thinks she made it up.

She didn't. It's all true. I don't think that I could do a night like that again. I'm eight years and an MS diagnosis older. But man, was that fun.

Also, if of my readers knows a Vancouver pothead named Boyd who was on the Seabus on Thanksgiving Saturday 2004, tell him to get in touch. A friend of mine would like to say hi and thank him for the warm welcome he gave her on her first trip to Vancouver.

White Castle Fries Only Come in One Size

Things I have done because of the Beastie Boys:

1. Made my now-husband take me to White Castle just to see if their fries only came in one size like they said in "Slow and Low" on Licence to Ill. Since that was 2005 and not 1986, White Castle now has fries in three sizes and I was sad.

For the record, White Castle is kind of gross. And they are surprised when you say "I would like two cheese burgers." They expect you to get four.

2. Developed a pole-dance routine to "So What'cha Want" because I felt at the time (and still do) that that song was meant to be stripped to.

3. I hum "She's Crafty" almost every time I do x-stitch.

4. Every breakup I have had since 1995 has led me to play "Sabotage" over and over again at high volume.

5. I cried when I figured out this line in "Sure Shot":

"I want to say a little something that's long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
I offer my love and respect to the end."

6. Googled "Saduharu Oh".

Adam Yauch, a rapper and founder of the pioneering and multimillion-selling hip-hop group the Beastie Boys, died on Friday in Manhattan. He was 47.

I've posted a bit about MCA's passing a bit on Facebook, so I apologize for bringing this up once again if you're tired of hearing about it. I don't usually get so concerned for dead celebrities but I think I have to accept that the death of a Beastie Boy for me is kind of like having a Beatle die. They are a part of the soundtrack of my life.

Namaste, muthahfuckah. The likes of Yauch we will not see again.

To Eddie... with love.

Until Facebook, Frank and I exchanged semi-annual emails - usually in the new year and sometime between my birthday in July and his birthday in November.

I last time I saw him was a few years ago; he had been living in Korea for years and quite unexpectedly announced that he was moving to Vancouver. I saw him shortly after he arrived. He was OUTRAGED that he had been there an entire WEEK and had not secured a teaching position. He was worried about living off his savings and going broke in Vancouver.

He asked me when the sun would come out. I told him "Next summer."

We had lunch. We went for a walk. He complained loudly about how badly his last partner had treated him. He met my husband and expressed surprise at my settling down. We sat together on the sofa and talked about mutual acquaintances and "Do you remember the time..." all afternoon.

He said he had some interviews lined up and he would be in touch. A hug, a couple of air kisses and a "I love you, Pats." "Cheers. Thanks a lot. Love you too, Eddie." and he was gone.

The next time I heard from him was months later. He sent me a Facebook friend request. That's how I found out he had gone back to Korea.

"Sorry." he said.

It was kind of a last minute thing. The next time he came back to Canada he'd book a stopover in Vancouver. We'll have lunch. Go for a drink. Something.

He never did.

We kept in touch via Facebook. We posted smarmy messages on each other's walls. Over the past few years I watched him literally work his ass off.

"I AM THIN AND GORGEOUS!" was our rallying cry. He was getting to where he wanted to be. He had plans... and none of those plans led back to Canada. Of that he was sure.

He apologized to me for being such a crap friend while he was in Vancouver. I told him that I was okay, that I love him just for being him and no matter what I would always be there for him. He promised again to stop in Vancouver the next time he was coming to Canada to visit his family.

That's not going to happen now.

Three weeks ago Frank, my friend - probably my oldest friend, dropped dead at 38.

I have known him for 19 years - half his life and just over half of mine. He was my friend for my entire adult life. I am glad he is my friend. I wouldn't love many of the things I do without his influence. He was the Edina Monsoon to my Patsy Stone. My life has an empty space where my Eddie should be. I'm sorry he won't be here to see what we all amount to.

Lastly, I hope they can find him an urn that he would be caught dead in. Sometimes fabulous friends can be high maintenance even in death.

"But is it art, Eddie?"

I hope so.

I did not write this

This land like a mirror turns you inward
And you become a forest in a furtive lake;
The dark pines of your mind reach downward,
You dream in the green of your time,
Your memory is a row of sinking pines.

Explorer, you tell yourself this is not what you came for
Although it is good here, and green;
You had meant to move with a kind of largeness,
You had planned a heavy grace, an anguished dream.

But the dark pines of your mind dip deeper
And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper
In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told.

— "Dark Pines Under Water," The Shadow Maker (1972)

Gwendolyn MacEwen


When you wrap up some of the most painful experiences of your life in memories of places you were both young & innocent and crazy & out of control and tie them together with a present desperation for change... you get reminded of Gwendolyn MacEwen poems a man you once loved read to you in the half light of a cold November Sunday morning.

"Hockey players wear numbers because you can’t always identify the body with dental records."

Duh da duddada - Duh da dadada

Duh Dah DaDaDaDa - DAH DAH DAH DAAAHHH

DUH DA DA DAH DADA!

(your transcription may vary)

Now that summer is here (we hope) my biological clock is confused about my desire to spend a Saturday evening indoors watching hockey. My team’s been golfing for weeks, but the team of my adopted home is in the Stanley Cup final. (Game 3 is live from Boston as I type.) Watching the lifers and long suffering Canuckistanians get into it and celebrate has been inspiring.

I haven’t watched a Stanley Cup final with such interest in years. (18 to be exact - but who’s counting, other than every Montreal Canadiens fan in the world.)

Some of my earliest family memories - vague as they are - involve church-hockey-euchure on a Saturday night. I have quoted The Theme Formerly Known as the Hockey Night in Canada Song above. I am pretty sure that I could name that tune in two beats.

I know all of the words of the Star Spangled Banner - not because I’m the wife of a patriotic American, but because I was once a 5 or 6 or 7 year old Canadian who happened to watch or overhear a LOT of hockey. When I was a kid I thought that O Canada and the US anthem were just one long song. They just reversed the verses for what city they were playing in.

What’s weird is that there were certainly no classes or tutorials on this stuff - I just know it. I know at some point someone taught me the icing and offside rules but I don’t recall when or by
whom I was told. I suppose it was my dad, but it could have been an uncle or a family friend.

Just as I do not have a memory of not being able to read, I don’t remember not knowing about hockey. I don’t remember, even in my surly-anti-establishment-queer-community days, ever turning down the opportunity to watch a game.

Even as I write this the TFKatHNICS is ringing in my ears. That song is as much a part of my identity as my eye colour or where I was born. I have so few specific memories of my past anymore that I cling to whatever vague assurance I can get from my past.



The Canucks killed me tonight. My hatred of the Bruins is greater than my love of Vancouver. I am taking this humiliating loss a little more personally than I should.

Joe and I went down to the cauldron today. It was 10:30AM on a Saturday morning and there were hundreds of people and a two hour wait to get to the unobstructed viewing platform. Not worth the wait so we just had to deal with across the street or fence views. (The photo above was taken through the fence gap.)

As we were walking to the cauldron area we came to the space between the Shaw building and the new Fairmont and caught our first view.

The word "wow" popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. I didn't think that I would feel anything upon seeing it, but it was a sight to behold.

The masses moving along West Cordova were mostly Canadians, with quite a few Americans & smatterings of Italians, Poles & Russian soldiers/sailors. What struck me about the crowds wrapped up in their red maple leaves was the diversity. Every race, every shade within those races, accented English, accented francais. It was incredible to see the great mosaic that we talk about as a theory or an ideal laid out before me. Sikhs with red turbans and maple leaf pins, young Islamic women wearing white with red maple leaf hijabs, an American couple with their three kids in Team Canada jerseys, the gay couple wearing their rainbow Canada flags as capes.

While I don't even pretend to think that Canada is "post-racial" and that we're some awesome utopian land of equality, tolerance and fraternity, for 17 days in February, 2010 in Vancouver, BC - Canada was pretty okay with being Canada - and the definition of the Canadian soul as something that it is, rather than something it is not, became just a little less vague.

For now. Come Monday we'll be back to our hand wringing, navel gazing selves when the UK Guardian spits it's last bit of vitriol our way over the closing ceremonies.

Symptom Log: Day 27

I have these three symptoms all day, every day.

• Paraesthesia (Partial numbness, tingling, buzzing and vibration sensations)
  
• Depression
  
• Cognitive dysfunction (Short-term and long-term memory problems, forgetfulness, slow word recall)

The footdrop, ataxia, neuralgia, anaesthesia, fatigue, anxiety, mood swings and Uhthoff's all come and go and are largely dependent on how well I manage my time and my energy. Like for instance, I can't go for my six block walk and do yoga in the same day, so I do each every second day.

Writing privately is proving to be much better for me (and let's face it, all of you) than blogging. I feel less judged, more able to manage my own response to my life, and I feel like I'm just better off not sharing what's really going on. Everytime I try to tell someone I actually know the truth about what is actually happening I get told that I just need to be positive, that I need to count my blessings, and that I need to just be grateful.

And that lets me know that the people who actually know me don't really know me at all. That makes me sad, because that includes the man I married and two or three of the people I consider closest to me.

Today's been a real day of evaluation for me because my grandfather died 10 years ago this very day. I miss him and there isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish that he and Joe had met.

My life was very, very different than it is now back then. I don't think that the people who know me now would even recognize the person I was back then. I'm glad that part of my life is over.

I miss my grandpa. I wish he were here.