Saturday, November 20, 2004
Nothing Poofy, Just Good Mates
There've been a lot of changes in Cabot thesixtoedneurotic cat since we left Calgary which for the most part have been encouraging. Except perhaps for the abrupt turnaround on his opinion of 'visitors' and his sudden 'closeness' with Matt.Much to my shock, I got out of the shower last week to find that apparantly there's been a little loving on the side happening between the boys. If this isn't a possessive statement, I don't know what is...
I guess I should have known something was up when Matt started wearing that shower cap..I'm so trusting and naive, I believed him when he said he had to wear it to keep the dreads dry. *sob*
lyric at post:
..It’s nothing I planned
and not that I can
but you should be mine
across that line..
Friday, November 19, 2004
that's all I got
wow. I've got a phone now. It rings. It's annoying. The world is intrusive suddenly and I'm not so sure I like it.Apparantly my ADSL modem is at the post office and I may, for the 800th time, have my own internet next Tuesday.
Which may not mean a lot because even with the carpooling one way to work I'll be leaving at 7 am and not getting home until 7:30 pm. Gah.
I don't have TB so I'm safe to work at the hospital. I do, however, still have a fever from the tetanus / diptheria shot. Bastards.
thinking of Jen, also
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Little needles
One of those shuttle buses, the little ones with the 6 or 7 rows of seats runs on my rural route. It pulls up and I board and make my way to the back (it's the latent teenager in me) as three little old ladies say "Good Morning!"I sit and listen as they sing "Happy Birthday" once, then twice as more people board, to another passenger who seems so embarrassed he refuses to acknowledge them.
I listen, too, as the 'ringleader' tells all of us pieces of her life. She's 68 and when this shuttle bus isn't available to take her to 'work' she'll get a ride with a neighbor. She confesses that sometimes she hitchhikes, to the horror of the others.
There's only four of these buses a day and on my return trip two of the men from the morning bus board with me - one of them, the birthday boy - and I realize that they are developmentally challenged in some way and so must go into work for someone for four hours a day, but I'm so unfamiliar with the town now that I cannot think who.
The shuttle driver on the return home won't accept any of the cash fares because she's driving a replacement Handi-Bus that has no coin box. It's a free ride. Imagine.
The route is known as a 'fixed deviating route' and while these people who live out here may very well be deviant (I think they're aliens, actually, they certainly weren't this way when I was growing up around here) - this is sort of a nice idea. Because we're out in the middle of nowhere, if you call ahead, the bus will pick you up at home - today it went about three miles out of it's way to drop off a teen-something mom and her two really annoying children.
After joining the library today, I did take a moment in my travels to read your comment, Vanessa and maybe this will help to explain a little...
I'm 35. Matt's 26. This, of course, is physical years - emotionally and mentally we seem to meet in the middle between our two ages. No biggie, really, it's not something we dwell on (except me, when I'm upset, as indicated below) but on the bus ride home today these two scary things occurred to me.......
He became sexually active at 21 (five years ago) - I became sexually active 21 years ago.
He figures he's loved three people in the last 9 years. It's been roughly 16 years since I've really loved anyone (if I'm being honest with myself) at which time he was 10.
Two examples only but you see where I'm going with this. Sadly, we all know it'd be different if the roles were reversed and even the people close to me assume that our relationship is about sex more than anything else - worthy of winks and backslaps and innuendo. Now, we're no Demi-t-Ash but still.....
I believe that we are each other's destiny. I can clearly see the path of the concidences and people that lined up to bring us together at exactly the right moment in time. I believe that I was here, experiencing the changes that I have this year, waiting for him to come so that I could step into the next phase of my life. With him.
My fear is that he will choose to ignore these things that he also knows. The only reason he will do that is because of his belief that he is too young. For whatever reason, valid or not.
This fear is a terrible thing.
And I resolved last night (because I know Sal is cringing and muttering about 'thinking things true') that I would let it go. I sat and felt the fear for a little while to acknowledge it and face it. It has now been delegated to the round filing bin in the corner. It's been stompled flat and pushed out underneath the door of my mind. Shushed and silenced and squished.
The only things worthy of my time are my beliefs.
At least for a little while longer.
And that, I'm suddenly sure, made nothing any clearer at all.
lyric at post:
..Foolishly I followed you to Dublin
Like a ghost I walked the streets of Temple Bar
And all the bright young things were throwing up their Guinness in the gutters
And once I thought I saw you from afar..
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Lines, Lines, All Over the Face, Place
clarification, note of : the problem is not MY perception of MY age (internally or externally). Nor Matt's perception of my age. But his perception (which, if I can put forth a humble opinion here, is completely fucked) of his age in relation to his life and what he thinks that has to do with me (which in reality, is not a damn thing).This is hard to explain because he and I haven't discussed it in detail so I then cannot explain it to you BUT rest assured, that every single age-related rant lately is directed more at the strange and nasty sense of humor that destiny seems to have in relation to orchestrating our meeting than they are about age. It's just that I keep running into these things and then I get all weepy and pissed off all over again. And I have to take it out / blame it on someone or thing or it.
Now, on with what I was going to say....
I have less laugh lines around my eyes here. Okay, maybe not LESS really, but they are certainly less noticeable in the moisture of the rainforest. Even less noticeable than Matt's.
Which gives me some sadistic (and quite frankly, sad) pleasure.
I waited in line today at the passport office for an hour - to be issued a ticket to wait in line. Why, THANK YOU Canadian Government and the rest of the paranoid planet.
Once at the front of that line (2.5 hours later), I was *allowed* to pay extra to ensure / guarantee that my passport would be ready on the day they say it will be. Meaning, they "TRY FOR" a 10 business day turnaround but if I want that to be a "FOR SURE" thing, I have to pay more.
Thank you again, Canadian Government, Department of Customs and Immigration.
Which leads me to my next comment - in unpacking his bag upon arrival in Anchorage, Matt found a little piece of paper inside it to let him know that US customs had been through his bag looking for illegal stuff. Don't you actually have to be there when they do that?
Monday, November 15, 2004
You Must Be Joking
I went in today to have my old family doctor sign my passport application since sending it out to Calgary for Tony:here would take three days and I may need it in well, two weeks.(I think I have to change that now, since he's no longer "here" per se, so let's say... Tony:Calgary is his new name)
Down in that little box where you put how long they've known you..... as he's been my doctor since I was five, he writes *30 years*.
What? How did that happen? How can that be? Who's been fucking with the time/space continuum again?
Because even though I know (intellectually and rationally) that I AM 35, that I have lived 35 years on this planet, it makes no sense to see it written down on the page there. Thinking it out, it feels like strangeness because not many people have known us most of our lives and so to most people we are 'ten' or 'fifteen'. There's just so few people who have that much time 'IN' our lives that we (I) forget the weirdness.
But, much like any thought of what's to happen around the 14th of December, it causes my conscious mind to flinch away and a small flare of firecracker pain in my chest.
For the first time in my life, I do not want to be the age I am. Not from fear or vanity or any of the usual things but because each reminder of my age is a reminder that this one simple thing - my time on the planet - may very well be the thing that causes the end of what I've waited all these years to find.
Which is a bit of a contradiction in terms, I *know*.
In my heart and until I look in the mirror - I'm only 24. Can someone fix that for me, please?
lyric at post:
..or drive your car all night,
by just starlight,
to Canada
that's where I'll be waiting..
Sunday, November 14, 2004
...16 days - no cable TV - - 50 channels - nothing on...
Cable TV.Who knew how many hours it fills? Even when you don't think you watch very much.
Oh, but you learn. Yes you do. When it's pitch black out here in the 'land of no streetlights' at 5 pm. When suddenly, your entertainments have gone to Alaska or grown boring or it's too cold (until Tuesday when the furnace guy comes) to do anything but sit on the couch in front of the space heater with a book you don't want to read or - even if there were anyone you wanted to talk to - you don't have a phone.
Then, that man with the drill makes loud noises in your kitchen and you see a wire poking it's way through the floor and with hands shaking in anticipation you plug it into the back of the TV... YES! Lo and behold, there is sound. There is picture. There is NO REMOTE CONTROL. There is NOTHING ON!
But I'm going to sit and watch it anyways goddammit.
Stuff and Things
With myself being broke and Matt coming to visit for the last week I spent some time looking around for things to do that were low-cost. Apart from hiking, we needed to things to do in case of rain. Plus, it's pretty chilly here. At least for me, who's not acclimatized to the damp cold, yet.There were some winery tours, the Tugwell Creek Farm meadery, a bunch o' cheap movie houses.... suprisingly, I actually found a lot of things.
Of which we did not one single one.
There was some hiking, a trip to Nanaimo to pick up some smoked salmon, a visit to a used book store, a few rousing games of Monopoly and lots of sleep. There was my first attempt at Vietnamese salad rolls and Matt made his camembert stuffed chicken with a white wine sauce.
The most interesting thing, however, was a visit to a live venue bar by the name of Lucky (where GWB has now been officially barred). There'd been an article in the local paper about the band playing there on Friday night and it peaked both our interests. I can't link to it but here's an excerpt...
The birth of the band took place soon after Pierson and Drucker "bonded over a Dr. Sample"-a basic sampling device. Soon after that, the two brought in cellist Alexander Kort, percussionist Jordan Dalrymple and woodwind player Marty Dowers (all of whom Pierson had collaborated with at some point in the past), and began as an improv group.
Sounds kinda cool, hey? The bar was beside a restaurant downtown that I'd been to a lot as a teenager but had never noticed anything beside. I don't think it had actually ever been anything. Now, it's one long rectangular exposed brick room and the patrons are all heavily subgrouped under "alternative university art student". Apart from making both Matt and I feel a bit old (for once)(there's about five tables and ohmygod I am so not standing up the entire time), we ended up in the corner beside the front door. Here's a general pic so you can see how wide... it wasn't. (from Hallowe'en, judging by the erm...Angus fellow)
The band though? Totally amazing. Their website is here and you can listen to a tune here - I recommend it. In fact, do it now, I'll wait.
And I had more to say, except blogger was sucking ass and lost it and now I can't be arsed to do it again. Will post pics of 'home' once my own access is up and running. Or, maybe I should say, IF
