The Space Between

So I'll give a quick weekend update before I get into my case of the Mondays.

Friday Wanker came over for wii and drinks (we were gonna rockband, but we didn't have enough batteries apparently) So we just wii'd, smash bros mostly. Twas fun.

Sat I had the Health and Leadership conference day 3, it was another fun filled and informative day. Afterwards we did outreach and I got to go to the Pumpjack (a nice little bar which is largely avoided by young people because it is mostly preceived as a bear/leather/old people bar). I had fun there, the guys were quite friendly which is refreshing. After that the sailor sluts and I went to the O where I got my dance-on on stage... It was probably the highlight of my weekend.

Unfortunately that means it was downhill from there...Sunday was the last day of the conference and it showed. People were hungover and tired, the information didn't seem as interesting and the whole time I felt some ennui. Then B and I went to see Remember Me, with Robert Pattison. Don't see it. Really, its awful and contrived and manipulative.

Anyway, that's my weekend, as I said Sunday I started feelign a little down. At first I just thought I was cranky/affected by the alcohol and lack of sleep. But then I felt the too familiar feelings/neurosis come creeping in.

So I just started staring off into space having a whole gamut of fun thoughts. The good ones were thoughts of worthelssness/that it won't get better, the usual. The bad ones were... well they were bad.

Fortunately I'm somewhat of a pro at this, so while I don't have too much hope for the next few days, I know how to cope and escape for the time being. It's frustrating that I'm pretty much hard wired for this kind familiarity with depression, but at least I'm functional... that's a good thing right?

Oh well, in the end I'm sure it'll strengthen my resolve towards helping out all my little baby gays...

I don't drink

My body hates me less these last two days, although I think the flu is turning into more irritating than infectious. I'm coughing a lot and there is too much mucus for me to take. WebMD suggests Lupus, I concur, bring on the meds.

Anyway, St Patricks day on wednesday was met with some interesting news. I decided to lift my ban on drinking! I did it over a year ago because I didn't have money and drinking was making me feel stupid. So I stopped drinking and thought it would be better for me in the long run.

The problem with this wasn't a lack of will power, in fact for the first time not drinking was as easy as not buying drinks. I didn't even crave it. I did however start to feel like I was isolated. For whatever reason those little words "I don't drink" precluded a lot of social activities. I could go out with people, but I'd be preceived as something of a wet blanket.

My family was great for it, every function I would be inundated with people offering me drinks.

We've got beer in the fridge downstairs if you'd like...
There's wine on the counter.
I'm making crantini's would you like one?

After each of these offers I responded with some explanation, usually emphasizing that "I don't drink." I began to treat it like something of a joke on their part, like a running gag or something.

My friends never pressured me. They'd mock my cranberry juice at bars, but that's just how we treat each other. Meanwhile they would get quite politely trashed.

As a bartender I got asked what I would recommend, or what I liked to drink here. I said water or tea, jokingly. When I didn't care too much about my sales I lied and said "well I like this beer, or a cosmo! playing up on alcohol and being fabulous for the sake of my tips. When I volunteered as a bartender at charity things I had no problems sticking it out behind the bar. In fact I often had more trouble with people offering to relieve me.

Anyway, I started to treat not drinking like a disability and while I still didn't get cravings like many of my friends would, I did begin to miss it. Be it resolved that, I am now drinking again.

I had 2 kilkenny's on st pat's day, which was at a good pace so I didn't even feel at all drunk. I did however feel free.

I suppose I'm an adult, and I can make my own decisions. Outright prohibition, while a good solution to my beer/school/bank woes for a time; but I think that in certain social climes I'll be holistically happier if I indulge in a glass or two.

Just so we're clear, I do drink.

Carry on...

I take it back

I'm still sick, now i've got chills, which is exciting, because typically that means I'm going to start to get all achey and nauseous. Fortunately I have B to look out for me.

So that thing I wrote in my last post, about Vivi being super cute? Redacted. He decided to mow down on some plastic milk just tab, then throw it up on the rug and one of B's ps3 controllers... Boo... So happy monday all.

Working right now, it's probably the most tolerable part of my day. Afterwards I have class, then I get to grind down some concrete in the lab.

It'll take awhile so I hope I can get into the TA area of the lab so I can nap with relative piece. Otherwise I'm gonna be fucking miserable when I get home...

Anyway, there was a good article posted on Afterelton in June about effeminate gays and how Elvis Stojko wants you all to butch up. It's a good read and won a GLAAD award so everyone who's struggled with their own issues of being butch, and even those who don't could use a good look at this...

Anyway i'm going to go throw up...

Carry on...

You think you die and everything will be sugar and rainbows?!?

Ugh
Anita's a whore and got me sick... Ok that's not true, B got me sick (maybe) or might've been C, but the fact is I'm sick. Don't get sick that often and usually its pretty bad.

Last night was C's birthday party at the O for Pisces night, I was a little disappointed by it because I wasn't feeling so well so I was feeling more nausea than there was magic.

He himself was in fine form, sporting a ridiculous pompador, finishing off a bottle of champagne, and sporting jeans that didn't fit him. When he announced that I had hoped that the binge drinking had caught up to him, but alas he has dropped weight (at one point more than one set of hands were used to see just how much space was free... it was cheeky.

C only wishes he could look like this...

In any case, I'm at home today being semi-miserable, B is playing FF13 which is glorious, and Vivi is being tres cute.


Carry on...

Just Awful

So I got a text from a friend (Texter) last night whose life reads like a "text from last night" marathon. She said she wasn't able to deal with her friends anymore because they keep asking her to have a threesome.

Me: seriously? dtmfa
Texter: then i won't have any friends
Me: wait when you said friends i assumed you meant 1 couple
Texter: well sometimes it's a couple, but i'd be lying to you if i said that tonight was the first time/friend
Me: i'd say take it as a compliment, but maybe you should just have a shower
Texter: no, showers typically make a person MORE attractive
Me: too true... hey just so i know, is there a classy way to inquire about 3somes?
Texter: no
Me: is there a better way?
Texter: use a 40 lbr
Me: ...hey hon, not sure if you'd be into it, but wanna come over? i've got a 40 lbr
Texter: I don't want to be friends

I miss her, she's one of my old bartenders and together we were team awful. She would tell me her weekend and i'd make her feel better by reminding her that i showered in the sink at the Timmy's on the way to work.

le sigh the good old days

not sure if anyone has experienced it, but waffles has been railing on me about my age. I don't really mind as I frequently joke about how old I am (I'm only 24). In fact I usually enable this kind of talk with my mannerisms (and tea drinking) but I think it's getting tired so I'm going to resolve to be young and hip (do the cool kids still say hip? or is it the unpopular kind of ironic again?)

Unboxed

As I mentioned, I had a conference all weekend, 9-5, so it's like my weekend evaporated with fun things to do. Actually it was a good weekend, cept for B throwing up on our floor (he's getting sick and the alcohol didn't help much).

But like I said, good weekend. One of the better parts was a discussion on the stages of coming out because it created discrete stages and explained different needs each person will have during the phases. What was particularly nice was that it was a bit of a reminder about taking into account a person's lived experience and that not everyone can simply be told "How to come out" as though it were like taking a magic pill...

Other highlights were a discussion I had with one of the other guys about reltaionships, it was cute and refreshing. Mostly because I sometimes find myself so 'in a relationship' that I box the term up and don't reflect upon what it actually means to me. My partner in the exercise expressed his hopes and fears about his relationship and I felt somehow unboxed.

I think it was a level of superficiality with which I live my life. I'm quite invested in a lot of people and often get bogged down by 'what I'm supposed to say.' Like a pre-recorded message...

Friend: He broke up w/ me!
Me: Awww Shame! Don't worry, you were better than him anyway! You'll find someone...

That kind of generic glossing over makes me feel insulated from actualand full emotional responses. Hopefully I can find little ways to remind myself of this with greater regularity...

But I wish my partner success and thank him sincerely for his listening.

ALSO, FF 13 is here tomorrow! B pre-ordered, but said I wasn't allowed to watch him play because i'm a backseat gamer. It's true, I do offer my unsolicited opinion often (I do know what i'm talking about usually though, especially when it comes to rpgs) Let's see how long our relationship lasts now :P

Carry on...

O-Face

So b, my brother and I went to the O tonight. Twas nice, we danced despite my extreme sobriety, and b's extreme un-sobriety. in fact after half a bottle of wine and 3 doubles, he was more than a little drunk (it made for some confused dancing)

Oh, but I had fun. Apparently all the gays turned out tonight, a bunch of guys from the health conference i'm at (which i'll have to talk about tomorrow or something), C showed up eventually with a friend (a real charmer), a couple of daniels...

Anyway had a time, the conference is for gay men's health and leadership. It's really a great idea (and there's free lunch and tea), we learned aboot the history of gay liberation in vancouver and some statistics on HIV/AIDS (get tested everyone, at least once a year...). Then there was a safe sex talk from a nurse (all about everyone's fav sti's) remember don't have sex, because you will get clamydia and die. Finally a fellatio seminar where the intro was one guy going down on the other... well no, but almost, but they stopped at the underwear (which was still a nice show btw)

then everyone pass the banana (remember boys no teeth!)

Anyway, i'm just waiting up for my brother to show up, i'm tired tho so i'll write more eventually

Carry on

Future Dreams of London and Fame

Had a dream I had to catch a flight to london, Patrick Stewart was there as sort of a Q figure (as in the omnipotent being from Star Trek), he was just observing my panic and talking me through it rather than use his powers. Periodically people would be seen cutting the tails off of rats and this didn't particularly disturb me until I found out I was in something of a video game where people were supposed to murder other people. It got rather gory afterwards... Not a bad dream, just odd and it left me feeling refreshingly awake afterwards. I hope its not some kind of Dexter thing where *spoiler alert(not that this AWFUL book should be read by anyone)* my long lost brother is really the killer and I have to use a psychic connection to find him... maybe i'm just a sociopath.

I'd like to go to london tho, B may be going there for work in the summer and I'd probably try and go before or after w/ him so we could see the sights, go to paris (even though i've had my fill of the French)...

Anyway, douche and wanker came over, catan and top gear ensued. With B's present we now had the two expansions so we ended up playing to 15 (which makes for a long game) i didn't win either game i don't think, which is odd because usually i'm spot on. (if we were only playing to 13 i would've won, but since they had the odds on their side i was effed)

Wanker has a new lady friend, an older lady, i hope to meet her and that she's less crazy than most of the girls I've met lately. I hadn't heard this development and felt like a bad friend, but then he forgot my birthday (thinking it was in March) so two bad friends make for a good friendship.

I have a midterm tonight but can't study until I get off work (lately my boss has been slightly more insistant that I do my work :P).

I've started flexing my creative muscles again, this time using a recently acquired version of adobe Illustrator. I was a design editor for my hs yearbook and while that gave me super powers, i didn't get to do very much designing/illustrating and haven't done too much since. I enjoy it tho. One day I figure i'll actually be able to illustrate one of the stories that i've written and turn it into a graphic novel with which i will make my millions... or thousands... or just break even but be a published author illustrator... self-published author/illustrator... probably self-published online... and only an author... someone may even read it one day... :P

Well I've done it! I've set my sights so low that I can't possibly fail!

Carry on

Naked Tea for Two

I feel naked. How's that for attention grabbing? I'll explain in a moment.

Ugh another clusterfrack this weekend... why didn't I do any studying/writing in the last two weeks? Midterm tomorrow in concrete, should be okay, I know my shit (5 courses into concrete and I should hope so anyway). Thurs I have my first draft of my group project, I haven't even gotten my group's emails yet so a first draft? Good luck with that... Friday I can almost breathe because I only have two homework assignments. I suppose I should start, but I made the executive decision to scrap the March Bqqr garden. Mostly because of this week being so busy and some other politics which have been grinding my gears.

Anyway I got to work this morning and was going to msg B with the usual nauseating text when I found that my phone wasn't in my pocket. Anyway, phone is missing so I had to scramble and find a way to contact the three people I was supposed to meet today. Unfortunately my mind is as good as Nabokov against team Canada sometimes so I don't know most people's numbers. I know my old home phone number, those of my three best friends, some select relatives, but that is it. Seriously, my phone disappears and I am Jack on the island with the heavy breathing looking for Kate (read: useless and SOL). Anyway, how sad is it that I don't even know b's phone number? I think it has a 3, 7, 4, 9 in it, and the area code... so odds are that I won't remember it. Bad boyfriend? Hardly, I blame society :P. So yes I feel vulnerable and useless, but c'est la vie, kinda wish I had stayed in bed this morning, then I could be nekkid, or I could throw on some house pants and play with my kitty. Instead I'm wearing far too many clothes for a person who showered in his bathroom sink, and my kitty is playing with my phone (that poor phone) I'll have to post a pic of him (Vivi and not my phone) soon, but I'm at work.

I stole this pic from a blog I started reading, Craig from One in Eleven, he's british but I won't hold that against him, provided he has me over for tea sometime (his comments aren't working for some reason though maybe I should call him... oh no wait...).

OH another fun occurence yesterday. Ran out to UBC (read: took the bus) to drop off some documents and ran into Wanker's little sister. After a brief exchange expressing our distaste for the music selection at the closing ceremonies I bid her adeiu and walked into someone else smiling at me waiting for an audience. Another nice girl, we talked for about 15 minutes about this and that, how I was, how she was, what she was up to lately. Except I had NO IDEA WHO THIS PERSON WAS!

At first I thought it was someone I worked with at the restaurant (but she didn't complain about the restaurant so it couldn't be), then I thought it was Wanker's new gf (but I called him and he said he was with her, he laughed at me), and so perhaps it's someone i've met over my tenure at UBC, but there aren't very many girls in engineering and I'd remember this one. I'm tempted to conclude that she doesn't know me and that she thought I was someone else, I'm okay with this.

Oh shite, speaking of Wanker, he wrote his LSAT and got some ridiculously good score (top 5 percentile or something). So he is well on his way to being Marshall from How I Met Your Mother. He's pressuring me to apply for grad school for architecture (so I can be his Ted, who is my LEAST favourite character on that show btw), but like I said I'm taking at least one year off to pay down my debt and regain my sanity. After that architecture may be fun, but I think I'll probably be professionally gay (activist/counsellor/poor) and take an interdisciplinary degree in poli sci, history, law, women's studies, critical studies in sexuality, psychology, and sociology. A real melting pot of useless/interesting :P.

Carry on...

Drawing meat...

So this weekend was nice/fun/exhausting/weird... A whole battery of emotions really.

First, congrats to all the olympic athletes, especially the Canadian ones, 14 gold's I'm sure everyone and their dog knows that that is the most at any Winter Olympics by a country (let alone the host country) so understandably Vancouver is the place to be (although as of this morning there was a general malaise as the hangover's started).

Anyway, Friday I went home to have a few drinks (i was just drinking cranberry juice i promise!) with some extended family, we went to our local legion and I must say that is a colourful place. Very charming. Best part of the night (apart from the win over slovakia) was when a lady came over offering raffle tix, I didn't buy any because I'm less affluent than I would like, but my cousins did. I found out later it was for a meat draw. Yes, they were raffling off roasts and steaks, I didn't think such a thing existed but leave it to my familiar old hometown to surprise me. My cousin won, she's vegan (something i didn't know because I thought I was the only pious person at the table jk).

I enjoyed that a lot, mostly because my family was there. I don't see them often but when I do, and when there's alcohol (and there's always alcohol!) it's a great time. Saw my older brother who I don't see very often, his wife was there too... Secret confession, I sometime's worry I'll regret how tepid I am with my family, we're not super close and were always more about surviving (or at least I was) than we were about making disneyland, vacationy memories. My aunts were great too, and one even coaxed me out onto the dancefloor, I remind you I am stone cold sober so that was a feat. nice night

Sat we moved B's sister into her new place... or tried to. We overslept and missed moving the bulk of it, but we helped unpack and arrange. Sat night we went for a walk to see the cauldron and B got some good pics, I'll see if i can steal them and post them here... Unfortunately we didn't get onto the observation platform but we'll go back now that its calmed the fuck down... Sunday was exciting with the hockey game, then we had dinner at B's parent's house. His mother was badgering me into eating meat (I didn't) and joked that she made my belated bday cake with beef blood and multi-vitamins just so i wasn't malnourished.

I laughed nervously when she did, because she usually doesn't make jokes, and she is some kind of crazy (in a polite, mothering way).

Anyway I'll post something interesting later, perhaps a rant or more people watching...

PS Closing ceremonies were funny, especially the way that Jon Furlong tried to speak french again... Loved the self-deprication and HATED the choices in bands... Alanis and Buble were good, but I would have perfered that she sing something a little more fun. Avril was an alright and obligatory choice (but I could've done for only one song from her)... But simple plan and nickelback?!? The athlete's were sooooo bored and uncomfortable... Oh well, there's always next olympics, they happen every year right?