Operation Happy Snap: DOMESTICITY UNDER ATTACK!

Time: 14:24
Update from Home:
The mouse trap (one of the Happy Snappy traps) went off around 14:00 hours.However, rather than being a casualty of war, the Beast is a wounded but possibly stabilized P.O.W.
The trap sprung, it succeeded in immobilizing said rodent but it frightened Commander-in-Chief Life Partner from the kitchen, as well as from the house for the moment when the trap sprang.
Life Partner is currently stationed on the front porch, reporting to me from a remote mobile phone on the status of Operation Happy Snap.
I have instructed him to re-enter the premise and check on the status of said Rodent.
Life Partner stated he heard a "nasty fucking gross squealy sound" coming from the kitchen, but the force of the spring in the Happy Snappy trap, has flipped the trap and sent it into an unknown area.
"I can't see the trap from here,"stated Life Partner, who peeked around a corner and scanned the horizon of Ground Zero, formerly known as Our Kitchen.
"All I know is, the trap isn't where it was, and I hear that thing squealing."
This could pose several problems.
The best case scenario - the rodent was wounded severely and will bleed to death in his new home, the Happy Snappy.
Or - perhaps only a limb is caught. Rodent will then drag the trap to a safe area and knaw his own limb off - which will defeat the initial purpose of Operation Happy Snap.
Or worse yet - the rodent will drag itself and the Snappy Trap into a small crevice, and die - but we will never know the TRUE fate of Rodent, and will be constantly living under the threat of another possible invastion, since we do not know its status.
I instructed Life Partner to re-enter the house, locate the approximate position of the Snappy Trap and wounded rodent, and beat it to smithereens with a broom or hammer until it resembles nothing more than a piece of chewed lassagna or a meatball from a can of Spaghetti-Ohs - and then dispose of the cadaver and take back our homeland.
More to come - update and film at 22:00 hours.

hearts and farts,
Capt'n Dan

Welcome to Hell

Do you ever feel like you are being challenged? Or that someone cast an evil curse on you? Or that all the stars - if you believe in that kind of astrological bull-crap - are lined up in perfect symmetry, spelling out "Yes, we ARE fucking with you!"?
That happens now and then.
The other day, for example.
First, I discover the horror of realizing that there is a mouse in my house.
My biggest fear, aside from flesh eating beasts that live in the darkest corners of my bedroom.
I thought I was safe too. I thought our house was clean.
We've lived in this house for nearly two years, and there hasn't even been so much as a dust bunny under the fridge.
And believe me, I used to do routine "behind the fridge" checks to make sure there were no traces of mouse shit. Always clean.
So, after going through all four seasons twice without any vermin, save for the odd spider, I figured our house was virtually mouse-proof.
Until yesterday.
I saw the creepy little fucker sneaking across my kitchen floor and scurrying behind the cupboards. I glared at it while my eyes welled up with both terror and hatred.
My nostrils flared.
My fingers became fists and my knuckles cracked.
Had The Beast not darted behind my cupboard, I would have torn it to shreds with my bare hands, smearing its blood over my body symbolically, as a war paint - declaring my triumph in the first battle of the war I was about to wage on all of mouse-kind.
In this war, I was captain.
"Kill them all," I'd command, calmly.
I hate them.
Deep-set hatred.
You swore at my mother-hatred. You hurt my little sister-hatred.
You're dirty and you're making me scared to walk around in my own house-hatred.
I left the house feeling like I had crabs and scabies, I stared at the brick walls of my domicile as I pulled out of the driveway and pictured hoards of pink, wiggly, wormy mice-babies squirming just inches behind them, waiting for me to come home so they could torture me by just existing.
"You'd never know there was a mouse in there by looking at it from outside," I thought to myself, and drove to work.
Work.
I had to run a small errand for them - nothing major at all - so I hopped in my car and started driving.
Car breaks down.
Dead. Gone. Ka-Put.
Fuckin' Chitty Chitty Bang Bang all over again.
I managed to push the lime-coloured Lemon into a nearby parking lot and I called my boss, telling her my car is, in short, fucked.
They sent - of all things - a delivery truck to come get me, with the understanding that the driver would drive me on my errand - I'd finish it - and then he would drive me home so I could figure out what to do about my shit banger automobile.
Except it didn't quite go as planned.
My driver, the English bloke who is a super sweet guy - stated to me in his Irving Welsh accent:
"Oi mate, they said you was gonna help me with a coupla deliveries, oi and then I'll drove ya home mate, and ye can git ya senses again with ya cah."
"Huh?" I asked.
Apparently, my alcoholic/drug addicted bosses told him to come get me in the delivery truck, and that I would help him with some deliveries.
I was furious, but helpless.
They fucking tricked me.
It was a computer, a vacuum, a sofa, a loveseat and a fucking washer AND dryer.
They fucking tricked me.
Billy the Bloke knew I was furious, and I was not mad at him.
I was mad at my bitch-fuck bosses and this was the FINAL straw.
So I left my broken down car that betrayed me yet again in a west-end parking lot and got back into the delivery van (aka Prison), on my way to do deliveries that I am not supposed to do and then Billy was to drive me back to my mouse-infested house.
How did it come to this so quickly?
The deliveries were - in short - fucking hell - and I bit my lip and went through them, hoping they would be over fast and I wouldn't kill myself or kill Billy by dropping a dryer on his head.
They ended without incident.
"So ya want me ta drive ye back then, mate?" Billy asked.
"No." I replied. "Take me to the store."
"Ya mad mate?"
"Oh yeah," I stated, monotone. "You could say that."
"Now don't do nuthin' rash then, mate. You can go home now, have a niiiice pint and smoke a big fat joint and not worry 'bout nothin'."
"Oh yeah," I smiled. "I'll be doing that tonight too. But I need to talk to those fuckers first."
We got to the store - not my usual store - the OTHER store where my other boss works and I got out.
"Danny!" he smiled happily as he saw me walk in, and his smile quickly faded. "Oooh you look really mad."
Keep in mind - even *I* don't know what I look like mad because I never get mad.
This instance however, was an exception.
I blew up at him. Swore at him. Cursed the company.
QUIT MY JOB.
My head was spinning.
"What the fuck are you doing?" I asked myself. "You can't quit! Jesus you just did! But you can't! God! Take it back! Take it back! Money! You need money!!"
But I couldn't take it back.
I pointed my finger at him, said he TRICKED me into doing that delivery. I said I didn't know WHAT I was hired for, said I was sick of being stepped on and if they wanted to hire a doormat to piss on, I was the wrong person.
He had attitude at first - but - before I was about to let loose with both barrels, about his drinking on the job, about them not even training me, about their unprofessional behaviour, he told me to hold on a minute.
He called my Parker Posey boss in the back room, while I took deep breaths and made mental counts to ten continuously, trying to calm myself down before I threw a couch through the picture window.
He came out.
"Okay. We are going to keep you at this store from now on and we PROMISE -you will NEVER have another delivery as long as you work for us."
He was sincere.
I took the deal like a homeless person would snatch up a bottle of Wild Turkey.
Finally - a light at the end of the tunnel. The new store was closer to my house, smaller, had a "small-business" vibe to it, that I'm used to working at.
And a promise - that I will never have to set foot on that fucking delivery truck again.
There's always a rainbow at the end of every rain, right?
I went home to a house full of friends and got absolutely trashed that night. It was great.
The next day, Life Partner and I dropped some major cash on a few new "toys" for our little buddy who made a home of our kitchen.
Eight glue traps, Six Victor snap-traps, four "Happy Snappy" traps, two "Killing Bars" and a box of poisonous "mouse treats".
I give the fucker 24 hours, tops.
This is war, dammit. If the bastard refuses to vacate the premises, we have no choice but to kill him by any means necessary.
Humane or not - I'll throw him in the microwave or attack him with a butcher knife if I have to. Just like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH!"
*hack* *hack* *hack*.
I like my mice dead. The way they should be born.
We've also decided to rescue a kitty. Not just because we have a mouse, although it does hold some bearing.
We've been talking about getting a little friend - a REAL friend - for our house for sometime, and I think the time is right.
Yipee for us.
But fuck man, when life hands you a shitty card - it doesn't fuck around.
p.s. - I busted my thumb during a delivery and scuffed a pair of my good leather shoes.
Fuckers.

hearts and farts,
dan

My First Time

It was summer, 1992 and I'll never forget it.
(I always wanted to start a blog like that....so...."Dirty Dancing" of me!)
It was like nothing I ever imagined.
My head was spinning, every nerve ending was standing rigid and taut, I was terrified, petrified, ecstatic, I felt guilty and lawless, rebellious and free.
I felt alive for the first time during my short sentence in life as a teenager.
"THIS is what it's all about," I remember thinking.
It all made sense. I came out of my shell. Grabbing life by the earlobes, and hanging on for the fast-paced blur of a ride my life was about to become.
I vomitted violently and passionately onto my friend's bedroom floor when I woke up the next morning, after we were finished.
I'm talking about the first time I got drunk.
Wildberry Coolers, Fuzzy Navels, Blue Light and a little bit of Jack Daniels, for comfort's sake.
Speaking of comfort, there was Southern Comfort involved as well, I believe.
I was going to my first "Motel Party".
Being fifteen, we had not yet graduated to the coveted and respected level of "Hotel Parties". That was for the cool grade tens, and the even cooler grade twelves and OAC kids.
But us "minor niners" had to suffer through flea infested piss-hole one story-motels that probably rented their room out by the orgasm.
A few of my friends, Christine, Ryan, Kelly and Lana all rounded up our own personal stashes of booze and decided to go to this little shin-dig.
We approached The Devonshire Motel - you can still see this coming-of-age milestone landmark building driving down Howard Avenue towards Devonshire Mall.
We approached with caution. Our booze in our backpacks. Our eyes constantly scanning the traffic coming down Howard avenue, convinced and paranoid that any second, a police car was going to pull up to us, and a cop who perfected the powers of x-ray vision would arrest us - or worse yet - call our parents for having the equivalent of a small bar on us.
But, we weren't arrested.
We walked towards the room - 108, if I'm not mistaken and looked for signs of life.
The curtains were drawn, no sounds of music or partying.
I was terrified. I had never been to a party with drinking, never hung out with "the kids who drank" and certainly never drank enough to get drunk, save for a finger dip in my mom's martini or a sip of daddy's beer at xmas.
So we knock on the door, and it opens.
"Hurry - get in!" Hisses our friend Kim - whose fifteenth birthday it was that night.
We darted into the hotel, my heart pounding almost out of my chest and she shut the door, putting the chain on.
A blur of faces whizzed by me as I scanned the room, probably 12 - 18 people lay about the room in various stages of drunkeness.
I saw friends and strangers in a totally new light.
"Hi Dan!" "Dan's HEERRE!!" "Dan! What's going on!" "Dan? What are YOU doing here?"
All of them had a strange glint in their eyes I had never seen before. They all looked freaky, spacey - fucked up.
It was kinda creepy.
I found a cozy spot on the floor by the t.v. and sat next to these two chicks who were watching Basic Instinct and cracked open my first ever - all-to-myself bottle of beer.
I hate beer. I choked it back, barely keeping it down, and my body was buzzing with nervousness.
I decided to save my beer for later, and I opened up my two-litre bottle of Wildberry Cooler: The Stuff Kids are Supposed to Start Drinking With.
At the time, I thought it tasted like cream soda. It was delicious.
I glanced at the label.
7% alcohol, made with Vodka.
Delicious.
I kept swigging. More and more.
I tried to nonchalantly sip it, like drinking was no big deal to me and all the kids at the party would see me drinking and tell their friends:
"Dan? Oh yeah..he drinks....nope, didn't seem like it was his first time...he seemed like a natural, he must drink all the time."
In five minutes, I was down to the last few sips of my two litre wildberry cooler.
And fucked up. I was soo feeling it.
I got into a conversation with the two chicks about Basic Instinct and told them it was nothing more than a Shannon Tweed titty flick with a bit more of a plot.
We started giggling, and I started giggling, my cheeks warm my eyes felt like individual marbles sloppily stuck in my skull and I felt like laughing and jumping on the bed, but I restrained this urge.
I cracked another beer and chugged it, and cracked another. The faster I drank, the better I felt.
That's when it gets a little blurry.
Me on the floor/fliring with one of the girls/Don't remember which one. /"I think she's flirting back with me."/ She probably wasn't. /Christine calling my name. /"Where are you?" /I looked up as a football player almost steps on me. /"Sorry," I apologized, even though I didn't have to. /He grunted. /Was I gonna fight? No, of course not. /CHRISTINE! /Yes, had to find Christine./"I'm in the bathroom," she said. /I got up, and the earth felt like it swung on it's axis, /the gravitational pull pulling one leg one way and the other leg the other./ I regained my balance/made my way to the bathroom/stepping over the entangled limbs of highschool kids everywhere.
Got to the bathroom/she was sitting on the toilet /told me to get in the shower while she peed/ she peed/I stared at my hands and wondered why I felt like falling/I got out we /debated climbing out the window for fun but said fuck it /knock at the door, /bad ass wigger kid jeff he comes in/wants to smoke a joint/he has a big birthday cake with him that says happy birthday kim/"wanna be the first to eat some of it?" he asks/we giggle/he lights a joint/just say no/I abstain/he fills my cup up/"here danny mac-Dee..have some of this"/fills it three quarters full with southern comfort/i take a sip it tastes like flat cola/"here's to nursury school," he says/I realize then I've known this kid all my life/since I was four/I know his mom/His mom knows mine/I think of my parents/poor sweet things watching t.v. and my lie/"Just gonna go sleep at Ted's tonight mom, don't worry about me."/here I am/drunk/drunk/drunk/drunk/drunk/drunkdrunkdrunkdrunk.
BANG!BANG!///BANG!!! at the door/dead silence in the room/us in the bathroom/joint burning/just say no/god bless ya nancy reagan, I thought/loud yelling/our worst nightmare come true:
It was THE COPS.
I envisioned myself being dragged, my shirt up and love handles exposed, from the motel room, with the theme song "Bad Boys Bad Boys, Whatcha Gonna Do..? Whatcha Gonna do when dey come fer you SAY bad-boy bad boy, sa-whatcha gone do sa-whatcha gone do when dey com for yooo.." and I started laughing hysterically.
I eyed the window and gave Christine a look "You wanna go for it?" - Wigger Jeff fell into the hotel room, out of the bathroom and the cops saw him and grabbed him /he started fighthing/more yelling, chaos, all my friends crying, strangers i didn't even know/"This is gonna be bad"/I don't know who said it, someone did/maybe me. I saw my backpack/ a chrstimas gift from my mom/fuck if i was gonna leave it to rot in this hell hole/snapped it up/the cops never saw me/heard them rounding up kids/asking for I.D./Christine and I still in the bathroom/he didn't see us yet/me panicking/
cut to christine:
Slow motion/
Tearing at the bathroom screen/
ripping it out with her fingers/
kicking out the thin pane of glass/
hopping up on the toilet/
one leg out the window/
her blonde head disappearing/
"come on dan! come on!" she whispered, nervous from the darkness outside the
small confines of the soon-to-be-death-trap-motel-bathroom/
Just me in the bathroom/
cops coming soon/
didn't know i was here yet/
had my back pack/
eyed the cake/
grabbed it/
passed it through the window/
me head first/
through the window/
christine pulling me/
falling/
no pain/
skinned knees
gravel in my hands/
out
free
escaped
DRUNK.
We fled into the woods behind the Motel, running like scavengers, fugitives lost in the wild. Me - with a birthday cake in one hand and a back pack of booze in another. Literally a travelling party. We met up with a few other kids who managed to escape and also took refuge in the woods.
Like a drunken fugee camp for minors, we huddled in the forest and tried to figure out what to do.
"We can't go back on Howard, the cops are looking for us."
"THey are going to come back here too."
"We gotta split up."
No, let's just walk for a bit."
"Fine."
"Fine."
We walked through the "woods" (I still have no fucking clue what "woods" we were in, but so help me god - we were in a forest) and we chanced upon some kind of building.
Seeing this as the perfect time to lighten things up - and to REALLY let down my hair and cut loose - I smashed the cake against the window of the building.
An alarm immediately went off - sirens - flood lights.
"JESUS CHRIST DAN!" someone moaned..and we were running again, into the night.
My face a deep crimson red both from the early stages of alcohol poisoning and embarassment.
We ended up on Dougall...and walked all the way down towards techumseh road, and headed towards Jackson Park.
Christine and I entered the park and walked around, sat by the fountain, stuck our feet in.
Nowhere to go. We were all split up. Just the two of us. What to do. We laid down, eyes closed for a few seconds before the reality of what was happening really hit us.
We were out - nowhere to go - freezing cold - drunk as hell with no way to get home.
We got up and walked down tecumseh, realizing it was only midnight.
So much had happened and only midnight.
We saw a bus coming, hopped on the bus, inside the bus were other party-goers, all headed towards someone's house on the east side, where we could all sleep.
We got off early because one of the party kids started vomitting. The bus driver stopped and told us all to get off the bus.
We were walking again, me staggering. I pulled out the bottle of peach schnappes from my back pack and started swiggin as we walked down the street.
We were somewhere on the east side. I finished off the bottle. We ended up at one of the O.A.C. kids house parties, a bunch of football players.
Terrance Spina. A case of Blue Light had gone missing. They sent out some guy to come "fuck us up" cuz they thought we stole it. Of course, me being the guy - I was gonna take the full beating.
I showed them my empty bottle of Peach Schnappes and everyone attested that we JUSt got there..they let us go...and told us to go to a certain address where we could sleep.
Travel again. I took my pants off and was walking in my underwear.
I was making up songs in my head and asking people if they thought I was fat or ugly.
KILL ME.
We ended up flagging down a cab. We got in.
More travel.
Residential neighborhood.
"RUN!! FUCKIN' RUN!"
We were running.
Apparently, we ditched the cab.
BANG BANG on a backdoor.
Creek creek up the back steps.
Walked into a room and I hit the floor, stone cold passed out.
In the dead of night, I heard someone say "Jesus Christ, it sounds like he's choking on a chicken bone," and I saw this girl Monica, who i didn't even know was with us - come running up to me with a bucket in her hand.
Too late.
Kerrrrrr-SPLLLAAAAAAAAT.
"Oh FUCK!" she said.
And I passed out again, leaving her to clean up my drunken mess.
I awoke, and realized - that I was two blocks from my house.
My head felt like someone danced the tango on it, with stilettos and my stomach felt like I just ate 34 uncooked eggs and one four live goldfish.
swish. swish.
I said my goodbyes, thanked monica for cleaning up my vomit and stumbled home, trying to appear as awake as I could.
Luckily, my parents weren't home when I arrived home. Out on a saturday night drive.
I collapsed in bed and slept until 4 p.m. and vowed never EVER EVER...
to drink again.
Ever.
Never Ever.

And that was my first time.

hearts and farts,

dan

MY BUTCH JOB

My Butch Job
Happy hunting, brothers and sisters.
Ah, employment. What a horrific thing.
See, I'm one of those people who, at the grizzled age of 27, still has no clue what I want to do with my life.
You know my new job? My "office" job?
Well, it's going well...save for the fact that both my managers have yet to really train me.
I'm left alone in the store to fend for myself, thrown to the wolverines of furniture store customer service HELL.
But that's okay.
I manage.
I "learnt" myself how to write up purolator slips, how to balance out the bank deposits, cracked the code to the safe, process payments and navigate this damn fine computer that I'm writing on at this very minute.
I've submerged myself in a pool of faxes and post-its, created check lists and started to organize the files.I'm trying - so help me god - TRYING - to be a self-starting office-bitch-boy.
My bosses are around my age.
The guy - is a fag just like me.
Been hooked up with a Life Partner of his own for five years, mature for his age - opening his own store soon - seems to be an over-achiever in many aspects. Sharp, intelligent on the computer - quick to solve problems.
Loves to shop.
During work hours.
The girl - is hilariously beautiful - looks like Parker Posey and has the energy to match. Always smiling, personal, attention to detail and just a wee bit disorganized.
Both will tell me they are going to lunch - and will be back in a half hour - to an hour.
That's what they TELL me.
When they do come back, six hours (no exageration) later - IF they even come back at all (I've closed the store on my own many-a-day) they reek of booze and slur their words and brag about the $100+ wine bill at the restaurant and all the hot guys they purused at Devonshire Mall.
Meanwhile, I'm at the office trying to run the place half-assed with no training, solo.
But - all that aside - they are great people. Nice, friendly, I can talk to them about anything and for the most part, very laid back and easy to work for.
However, running around an office like a chicken with it's head cut off is one thing.
Doing what I did on Friday, is another.
These bosses of mine...are "charming" people.
"Charming" is of course, another word for sociopath.
They know how to work people and hynotize them with smiling eyes and compliments - until said person is belly dancing and doing the watuzi for them before they even realize they are being taken advantage of.
On Friday - they asked me to go on a furniture run.
A furniture run is basically a delivery of furniture to a house.The reason they asked me to go - was because they just fired the other furniture mover dude for smoking pot and taking the moving truck home on his own time. Great place to work.
So - I agreed to go - THIS ONE TIME - reluctantly, dreading it.
The other moving guy - Billy - a super nice, down-to-earth bloke straight off the boat from Manchester England, came with me and drove the truck. We were to make two stops.
One - a condo on riverside drive delivering a black leather sofa the size of a tank, and a 57 inch television set about the size of Silver City.
The other, a big fucking jumbo-sized washing machine and a set of bunk beds - to the east side ghettos, baby.
The condo, was a nightmare.
Being the uncoordinated clutz that I am - I accidentally tore a small snag in the back of the leather sofa.
I decided to keep this a secret, even from the other delivery guy and luckily no one noticed the tear when we put the sofa in its proper spot in the condo.
Then, I almost dropped the big screen t.v. on poor English Billy when we were dragging it up a set of stairs. The impact probably would have killed him.
MURDER!
I would have had MURDER - the blood of a fellow man - on my hands for LIFE!
Nothing is worth having that kinda shit floating around on your soul.
When we walked into the condo, I felt like I was walking into a Notorious B.I.G. video.
"The Rap Music" was bumping on a stereo the size of an industrial refridgerator, and gangstas and their bitches peppered the room and glared at us like we were undercover cops, disguised as bumbling furniture delivery men who were about to pull out our FBI badges and bust their operation, whatever it may have been.
Now I'm being racist. I'm not, I assure you.
But - white, black or red - it was a fucking intimidating room to walk into, and the tension was so thick you could cut it with a knife, and for a minute - I thought a knife was seconds away from being pulled.
So I was glad to leave.
The second stop - the bunk beds and washer - was sheer agony.
I was most concerned about the washing machine - wondering how the fuck I was going to get by without doing any lifting. It turned out to be a piece of cake. We slapped it on a dolly, and I pushed the washing machine straight into the house - MYSELF!
I was so proud, and I felt so butch!
I envisioned myself as a furniture mover by day, and a boxer by night, waiting for my big breakthrough-fight that was gonna bring me to the world championships, just like my childhood hero, Rocky Balboa.
Then I scuffed my new leather "office shoes" and I was pissed off at my drunken bosses for making me do this fucking menial, slave labour.
Next came the bunkbeds.
Easy enough to lift, seeing as they needed to be assembled and were in small, light, easy-to-carry pieces.
The catch:WE had to assemble the mother-fuckers.
I can barely put batteries into my walkman without fucking it up permanently.
How the HELL they expected me to be even a fraction of "useful" in the assembly of this wooden death trap was beyond me.
But I tried. So help me CHRIST, did I try.
I successfully assembled the ladder to the bed, while poor Billy did all the hard stuff.
He nearly finished before me - constructing the entire monsterous bed while I shimmied with the simple, two-step ladder.
Delivery was not for me, I was certain - and a day of simply running the office half-assed looked and sounded great in comparrison to this shit.
So we get back to the office - FOUR HOURS after we left and I felt like I was coming home.
"So Danny...how was it...?" smiled Laura, my little Parker Posey boss who just bought a purple betta fish for our office.
We named him Zin.
"Glorious," I replied, sarcastically and sighing with relief that it was over and done.
I sat down, put my feet up on the desk and took a big swig off my chocolage shake I bought on the way back - a reward for going through such hell.
"Great!" she ejaculated happily. "We're probably gonna put you on a few of those every once in a while, if we're short a person."
I swallowed my milkshake. Hard.
I felt my "attitude-black-chick" persona slowly coming forth.
My spine stiffened and I felt my head cock, eyebrows raise.
Oh Hell No. I know yaw'll didn't just say that shit, right?
I nearly choked on my chocolate shake.
Before I could retort, they did it:"Okay...we're going to lunch now! Bye!"
And they were gone.
They didn't come back that night and I won't see them until Tuesday.
RIDICULOUS!
I so wasn't hired to be a moving man. I can't do it. I'm a wimp!
I don't own steele toed boots and I don't know how to put things together.
I'm blind in one eye and posess the eye-hand coordination of a two year old with a A.D.D.
So I'm telling them on Tuesday that I CANNOT do this again...I'm going to use the ole "I had a broken pelvis once" story and milk it (hell - it DID make me miss a Liz Phair show back in 1999 - remind me to write a blog about that) so I don't have to do any heavy lifting.
I'm also currently looking for a new job.
I want to be a waitress again. Or work in a music store. Or a video store. Or data entry. Or front desk. Or a hotel. Or the Casino. Or the downtown cruise boat. Or a radio station. Or be an astronaught. Or a lawyer. A teacher. A cop. Work in a park. A greenhouse. A pet grooming shop. Start a magazine. Become a roadie for a band. Write for Biz X.
I have NO IDEA what I want to be but I do know I DO NOT WANT TO BE A FURNITURE MOVER.
It's too butch and all the lesbian got sucked outta me after Ani DiFranco sold out.

hearts and farts,

dan

Observer Guy

Hey - anytime you (or anyone, since this blog isn't officially "to" or "about" anyone) see some guy at a bar - ANY bar - glancing over at people or even just taking a look around the room - that's "Observation Guy" - and it is MOST DEFINETLY ME - making observations about YOU - and ONLY YOU.
See, it's all about YOU.
This entire blog, every single post I've ever posted - is directly about YOU.
I know you. Everything about you. Your favorite movies, favorite food, your work (or lack thereof) schedule, your sexual history and orientation, your music collection, your selection of hair care products, your mismatched socks, right down to the small hole that is starting to wear through in the crotch of your favorite pair of jeans.
YES - I AM talking about YOU.
And yes, I know about the last letter you just wrote (the imporant one, to that someone special?) and the piercing you've been contemplating and how you know "that one song" is probably about you - and if it's not about you - it's about your friend.
I even know about the last time you farted in a room full of people, the way you squeezed yer butt cheeks together hoping you could hold it back by sheer force of butt-muscle, but - to no avail. Only YOU would do something like that. No one else.
And for the record, I COULD smell it.
Don't think you can hide that easily.
I know this already.
How could I not? I'm "Observer Guy" - I know everything.
See Observer Guy is this pathetic old man who sits at a bar and writes truths about people he doesn't even know.
He's psychic too, eh? You think a story sounds familiar? Sounds remotely like you? That's because it IS about you. It's ALL about you.
Who else would it be about?
Certainly not the people I know personally. Of course not.
It's about YOU - DIRECTLY. ONLY YOU.
As a matter of fact, reader - my world revolves around you. It's all I can think about.
You, You, You, You, You, You, You, You, You, You.
If I were to publish a novel, it'd be called "You".
If I were to suggest the company I work for hire someone - it'd be You.
When I recognize someone on my way to the bathroom at the bar - You.
And when I'm cleaning slush off my sidewalk and notice the cute couple who look like the kind of people who take ice cubes in their beer - it's YOU.
Both of them. Both You.
So from this blog forward - take everything you read - PERSONALLY and to HEART because it is FOR SURE about YOU.
It always was anyway, from the very beginning - but at least now it's out in the open.
Remember, I'm observer guy.
You feel the hairs standing up on the back of your neck?
Do the words you read ring of familiarity?
Do you see that fucker sitting across the room, scribbling into a note book and making sly glances over to your end of the world every once in a while?
That's Me.

See YOU soon.

dan

Drinkin' Alone

"Pretty, pretty, on the fence/in your pretty moment of innocence.."
Alexi Murdoch..."It's Only Fear" - coolest guitar and lyrics in a song that I've come across in a long time. Fantastic. I've been listening to his four-song sampler for a while now...it rocks..totally cool..i know nothing about this dude, but I hope I hear more.
...great drinking song, even though it has nothing to do with drinking.
I've been thinking about that quite a bit..and how much I used to love doing this at home..getting a bottle of Jim Beam or red wine, putting on a random mix of CDs in my collection that I rarely listen to - and sitting at my computer, or laying (lying?) on the floor and scribbling things and thoughts down.
The drunker I got the more absurd the things I scratched down were.
And the next day I'd read them and wonder what the FUCK I was thinking to write what I wrote. I'd do that all the time.
I was going through old writing collections a few days ago trying to scrounge up stuff for the next Phog poetry night - something that would translate well if read aloud, and I realized I have about 15 - 20 notebooks FILLED with writings, both drunken and sober.
Never as focused as these blogs, but even through the abstract filter of inebriation, they kind of map out a really nice autobiography of my life at the time.
It's weird.
When you write stuff down - stuff that pops into your head for a milisecond...it's like taking a photograph. Except in techni-colour.
When you take a picture of something, it can be just a photograph at the time you take it.
Then you look at the same photograph, years later - and it says something totally different - now that you're viewing it with some hindsight.
You notice body language, you notice happiness or sadness - just a little glint in the eyes.
You see how things WERE at the time - REALLY WERE - but you didn't see it when you were living it.
It kind of works the same way with the shit you write down - if you catch it as it slips through. Your mind spins through an infinity of thoughts a day, right? Stuff we don't even notice or KNOW that we think of.
If we can just focus on this for even an hour - and kind of just write out in a stream of subconsciousness - every absurd thought in our head, then put it in an envelope without reading it - and open it up and read it a year later...we'd probably shit ourselves with surprise at how insightful we are - how we REALLY knew what was going on in our lives - to the point we wrote it down, yet were still blind to it at the time.
Scary stuff.
I'm drifting again.
Where was I? Yeah - drinking alone. I am kinda doing that tonight, on this oddly quiet Saturday night. It smells like Spring outside and I'm twitching with spring fever.
Yet here I am at the computer, just opened a bottle of red wine and I'm waiting for the phone to ring.
Life Partner is downstairs having a nap and all my friends are sick or in PJs...I'm antsy...I might try writing something creatively for a change. This blog rocks - but it can be numbing...regurgitation of the day's events, not to short change anyone who might be reading this.
Maybe I'll write some juicey gay porn - or better yet - bisexual porn - and publish it to this blog, to spice things up a little.
Gonna get drunk,

hearts and farts,

dan

My Blue Heaven

I had a REALLY weird dream the other night.
I had a dream one of my best friends killed himself (he's not suicidal, by any means) and when I found out he killed himself, he was standing next to me, smiling at me.
And in the dream, I was bawling my eyes out - asking all my friends why it had to be HIM who ends up leaving us so early - and how I could never talk to him ever again and how horrific that was.
And then, I kept on starting to say something to him - to address him - but I'd stop myself and say "Shit! I can't talk to him, he's dead."
But he was right there next to me - I could see him. It was just the notion I had about death - death means - GONE - not THERE. But he WAS there.
Weird ideas we have, subconsciously even, about death and people being "gone".
I'm not someone who believes in an afterlife all that much.
(Then again, read my post about being afraid of the dark - I am terrified of ghosts and flesh eating clowns who will devour my petrified body in the milisecond it takes to switch the light off).
But I have always believed in dying as ...I don' t know..without sounding too much like a Sylvia Brown-loving, Crossroads-watching, Astral-travelling hippy diet-coke-head, I have always considered dying and "moving on" kind of like a transfer of one energy to another.
A change of source, focus.
Maybe we project out a new energy..not so internalized or introspective.
Maybe the worms we produce, the smells and moulds and maggots that fester out of our rotting pores...the thousands of dead cells that are born out of our dying ones...is just, put simply: What we become.
An energy transfer. It's still US - just not the US we are now.
Or an "us" that resembles anything about what we once were.
And the part people DO recognize - lives on - our mental energies - in memory.
Memory is like, my motivating force in life.
I bank everything I know about everyone - or try to - every encounter, adventure and small detail, every wink of an eye and kiss on the lips. I try anyway.
Maybe in memory - memories of us - in other people - is STILL our energy - living on.
Whether or not thoughts of us generate good memories in others, or bad - is the deciding factor of what our AFTER LIFE is.
Personally, I want my afterlife to be one with me laughing and drinking and enjoying everyone's company. That's how I want to spend my life, that's how I want people to remember me - and that's how I want to spend my eternity.
Even if I don't spend it consciously, if there is still a happy or comforting memory of me left playing over in someone's mind long after I'm gone - then I'm as good as gone to heaven.
That's death, baby.
Or maybe it's a little bit deeper than that.
Some guy I DO NOT EVEN know - has an online blog - and I read it once.
He wrote about dreaming, and where our minds can take us in seconds.
Think of it.
We can hit the snooze button on the alarm clock - and fall back into a deep sleep. In the ten or fifteen minutes our snooze button graciously grants us, we can dream about epic adventures, horrific nightmares in which we are paralyzed and can't wake up from, or have the greatest sex dream of our life - a seemingly never-ending orgy with every movie star we ever dreamed of.
That's beautiful - so poweful it's beyond comprehension.
Anyway, what if - when we are dying - we start to dream.
Just before we lose consciousness and death takes us away from everyone we know in the world - which WILL happen one day to YOU, the reader - this is EXACTLY applicable to you because you're gonna be in this situation sooner or later - what if we dream?
And when we dream...what if it is this FINAL thought that leaves us hanging on forever? If we are thinking of one thing before we go - what will it be - and will that milisecond of our life, before it's sucked away from us in our last breath - stay with us forever, for all eternity?
Will that milisecond be an epic adventure, neverending? We will have no concept of time. Just that last second.
It could be a dream - that to the living, concsious folk - is less than a blink of an eye.
But to us - it could be a whole, entire life unravelling out for us.
I guess the moral of the story is to think good thoughts about everyone - and maybe your last thought you think (you never know when it's gonna be) will be one that stays with you forever.
That's the bottom line, isn't it? To be happy? Not to sound like Debbie-Downer, but it just seems like people are missing the point of what even the basic NOTION or idea of what "heaven" is.
Anyway, I've drifted.
In my dream - I woke up with these words in my head, and I thought they really said something - and I HOPE they came from me. It's very possible I heard them somewhere - hell this might even be a bible verse - but it was playing in my head over and over and I thought it sounded nice.
It was just this plain, unrecognizable voice and it said, as clear as day:
"Laughter is the ladder to heaven."

Whether or not that was my subconcsious talking - or something my subconcsious picked up from someone else - it sounds alright to me.


hearts and farts,

dan

Death to Winter

February sucks the fucking life out of me.
Seriously - it should be outlawed.
Everyone's nasty and cunty from their post-new-year disappointment or pissed off because of the shitty weather.
Myself included.
I hate snow in February.
I don't want to shop.
It stinks like slushy ice and car fuel from people revving their engines because they are stuck in snowbanks.
Summer feels so far away because we still have to get by the beast of spring.
Fucking spring.
A big taunting monster who stands in front of Summer, on guard, armed with unexpected snow falls, and freezing cold rain just to fuck with our heads when we THINK the gorgeous weather has finally arrived.
I think, since November - I've seen the sun about three times.
I don't understand it...just gray clouds all day, all night.
Fine - I can understand it being cold and wet - but where is the sun when it's not snowing or raining? There aren't even clouds! The sky is just this horrific, over-cast, sad gray.
It's fucking depressing. I'm going to start going tanning again, I don't even care if I look like an african raisin by the time I'm sixty - I want warmth and comfort, dammit.
I'm a wee bit comforted today. Something about the air...smells like spring. Even though the sun still isn't shining...just the melting snow...there's an "earthy" smell...and I can see birds flying around outside my window right now.
Maybe this is it.
The earthquake that took place in Thailand fucked with the weather and from this day forward - February 10th shall be known as the Death of Winter.
It'd be great. A nice, warm thaw in February - and progressively better weather after that.
I always think February is the last month of winter - but March is always awful. March gets gorgeous around the 15th or 16th - and by then - I am CONVINCED - THIS IS IT!!
I start getting out short sleeved t-shirts I haven't worn since last summer - that I'm afraid to try on for fear of realizing how much weight I've gained over the winter and I begin organizing my closets, putting my winter jackets, gloves and scarves in places where I KNOW I won't be able to find them, when I need them next fall.
And then - KA-BOOM!
March 19th - 8 inches of snow.
"I'm dreaming of a white christmas" all over again. Snowmen stand and make goo-goo eyes at me from the front yards of my neighbors houses, like prissy little cunts who got their way by bending the laws of nature itself.
It's not natural to snow that late in the year - but it always does - just to piss us off one last time.
The Beast of Spring shooting us the finger.
But that's not for another month and a half.
We're not even half-way through February yet.
To fight my winter blues, I have decided I'm going to go in and participate at the next Juce event at Phog and read something. I don't know what yet - something old - or something I'll write especially for the occaision.
Hell - I don't even know when the next open mic juce night is.
It's probably tonight, and I'm going to miss it.
Blah. February.
hearts and farts,
dan

Winterjam 03

Picture it: Two rugged straight boys and a semi-insecure, but witty gay guy - all lodged up in a tiny, crowded, space-heated garage in the dead of winter, with only a forty of Tequila, a case of beer, a bottle of rye and endless cigarettes to keep them company.
Countless amps of various shapes and sizes and a vicious tangled knot of patch chords, outlet extensions, keyboards, guitar pics, and chord and lyric sheets pepper the floor of the converted garage and the boys sit on milk crates and an old sofa bed.
A thick cloud of marijuana hangs heavy in the air like spiderwebs, the smokey fingers of Mary Jane herself tickling our noses and irritating our eyes..
Zippo lighters click and unclick.
A scream of electrical feedback.
A hushed "Oh fuck..."
And the session begins...
Okay, so it wasn't a big garage-gang-bang - but it was one of the best, coolest most awesome nights in the last two years. For me, anyway.
Myself and two of my friends - Jeff and James - were hanging out in Jeff's converted garage. It was late December - the twenty-second to be exact - and the three of us decided to take out our GEETARS and play a couple tunes.
Now - don't get me wrong. I'm not much of a musician by any means.
When I say "play a few tunes" - I mean - get really stoned and drunk and play out a couple of melodies in my head and see if anyone else can add anything to them.
And that's exactly what we did. I had my six string electric Ibanez that I had since I was seventeen.
James played Jeff's loaner black-and grey taped up M.O.N.S.T.E.R.
He played it plugged in and the crazy mother fucker sounded like a dirt bike motor from outspace - but it fucking rocked.
Jeff strummed on his 12-string or patched in another electric guitar and had a wah-wah pedal that gave the "skitar" (as we called it) crazy, spacey,dreamy special effects.
And we played.
And we smoked.
And we drank and we played and we smoked and we drank and we played and then we'd stop and talk, debate going to the bar or not...and keep playing.
James discovered that when you hold a glass bottle up to the neck of his guitar and slide it down, it sounded like what you would THINK a frozen waterfall would sound like, if it shattered.
It echoed, reverberated off the walls and bounced back, hitting us all in the face.
I immediately started strumming this little low note....like a heartbeat...slow..but steady...subtly speeding up...*bing.....bing......bing....bing...bing...bing...bing...bing..bing..bing..bing..bing and started sliding around the neck of the guitar on the panatonic scale - i'm not even sure if that's the right term for it - basically the ninth and twelfth frets - it gave the song a heart beat.
That was when Jeff piped in.
He pedalled the wah-wah pedal to give the song this funky beat like "Chicka-chicka-chicka-CHICKA-chicka-chicka-CHICKA-chicka-chicka-CHICKA" and it started from there..
It felt like we were all in our own worlds - and we were - but connected to each other all the same.
Each one of us was SOLELY focused on the sounds WE as a single person were making with our instrument, yet somehow - connected to the sounds that everyone else in the room was making. James sped up - and I knew to slow it down, to even it up. Jeff pepped up his wah-wah and his funkadelic strumming and James knew to hush the shattering glass effects to let Jeff do his thing...when both guys got quiet, I knew to keep the heart beat going...steady...persistent..*bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-bing-CLANG!* and explosion - we were jamming again...
I was doing mental counts in my head of the rhythm both guys were playing out 1-2-3-BREAK 1-2-3-BREAK and I started making up my own rhythm based on that. We were angry and happy and stupid and hilarious - it was FUCKING BRILLIANT.
Our cigarettes were burnt down to long slender collumns of ash and our dranks sat undrunk and our hearts were beating our eyes fixed on our fingers our ears tuned to every single tone that was being belted out - we were communicating without uttering a single word - Jeff would ask a question "Wah-wah-chicka-chicka?" and i would respond with a fast or slow or variation and James would continue shattering his glass coated guitar chords accordingly...
The song we were playing - had no planning, no logic - but were beautiful and spontaneous.
My entire body was buzzing - the song turned into an explosion a supernova of sound, screams, laughing all played out on guitars..and then....Ground Zero....the moans and frolicking chords decipated like a hurricane, like a funnel cloud and my heart beat rhthym *bing bing bing...bing.......bing.......bing........bing..............bing.................bing* was a life-monitor of the song..it came to it's end.
The second the last heart beat was beaten - we put our guitars down - looked at each other - and BURST out laughing.
Side-splitting laughter at how INCREDIBLE it was - how fantastic we felt. I remember saying to them, as I poured a big ole straight rye in a rock-n-roll glass - that how STUPID were we - for thinking we MIGHT want to go to the bar. How any HIGH or DRUNK I could ever imagine - couldn't be like the adrenaline rush - the roller coaster ride - of making something that gorgeous - producing fresh and untouched SOUND with friends - no High or Drunk I could ever consume myself into could EVER match the feeling of physical and mental elevation I felt at that moment.
And if drugs or alcohol were an aid to this feeling - then so be it - it only proves they were also an aid to the sound.
Tools of the trade, God bless them.
If every night could be like that - I'd be dead - and gone to heaven, happily believing I have fulfilled my purpose as a human being who was only put on this earth to learn his purpose for living.
That night - it felt like that was it.
We were communicating without saying a word - speaking a fucking language that is not yet spoken.
That was a holy experience and I'm so glad it was shared with the guys I had the privelege of sharing it with.
Those two rock.
Aside from all the drugs alcohol and cigarettes I consumed, my body and brain were just ALIVE that night - with what just happened and the realization that it was NOT just ME being stoned. That they all felt it too.
So, here's to the band that never was.
The three of us guys - one night - in Jeff's shed.
I love my band.
Here's to feeling like you're cool - and for once - actually living up to it.
You know who you are.
And you know how it feels.
That night - We Rocked :)
Everyone deserves a night like that.

drunxxxxxXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

remember my promise-post about not drinking anymore?
fuck it.
drunker than a skunk as we speak.
I guess skunks are known for being drunk, and when it comes to stink - I got it down "Pat" - (whatever having it "down pat" means).
One glass of red wine and four voddies on the rocks w/ a splash of amaretto.
if that doesn't spell 'off-the-wagon', then my grammar teacher in elementary school didn't do a good fuckin' job of teachin' me how to spell.
fuck you Ms.Stromme!
I PROPOSE A TOAST! To teaching me how NOT to spell!
so much for a month of sobriety.
I couldn't do it if you paid me.
And why WOULD I anyway?
Life Partner asked me a question tonight that rang true and touched the pit of my soul:
"Not drink for a month? Dan, why the fuck would you ever put yourself through that?"
He knows me so well.
God, I'm in love.
So I'm sorry, blogger audience.
I am breaking my sober-promise for the "hearty" month of february.
*sigh*

Promises:
Meant To Be Broken, aren't they - or - Aren't They?

hearts and shits,

dan

Getting Worms: A Sobering Experience

You've read correctly brothers and sisters.
I've joined the ranks of dirty gradeschool kids reared in filthy homes, homeless people and stray cats and have become a putrid but proud carrier of the ringworm fungus.
It's not as bad as it sounds. In fact - it's not even a worm. It's just a rash.
A tiny, dime-sized circle on my forearm. I caught it from my parent's psychotic and crazed Wheaton-Terrier named Stan.
I call him S(a)tan.
I've had it for like, three weeks (it was much itchier weeks ago) and had no idea what it was until my mom pointed it out a few days ago. I looked it up on the net and I guess it lasts about three to four weeks and then goes away.
I'm debating going to a drugstore tonight to grab some cream anyway, but it might be a waste of money, because my little tiny pet ring worm has pretty much deteriorated down to a very small patch of dry and slightly irritated pink skin.
It looks like it's going away.
Bye Ringworm! I'll miss you!
Hell - I'm not even totally sure it WAS ringworm.
I just looked it up on the net at my mother's suggestion and some of the pictures kinda looked like it, except mine is not as nasty or red or as big as the examples on the net. A
nyway, enough about my worms.
Let's talk about sobriety.
I'm doing a little experiment right now, partially due to the fact that I have to budget myself totally different, since I no longer have the luxury of making tips at work.
Getting a paycheck every two weeks sucks.
I'm used to going to work for like, three to six hours and coming home with $40 to $150 in untouched cold glorious cash. I never used to go to "bank machines". I never had to use a "debit card".
I just always had the cash on me - and if I needed something - I paid cash, my bank account stayed untouched. I didn't pull out a bank card once this Xmas - my savings account didn't slip a single notch.
Now, coming home from work every day - I have a panic attack when I look in my wallet and it's empty!
Empty!
I feel like I am working for nothing. Of course, all that will change when I get my second paycheck (my first was only for one week - and it was STILL bigger than any check I ever got at Margarita's for two weeks), but still...when I was a waitor - I always had money on me to go out and play - and still had a wad that I would deposit in the bank and STILL have a paycheck coming to me that would go into the bank. Saving was the easiest thing.
But now...this "budgeting" every two weeks bullshit....just ...Sucks.
So - I'm trying to be sober for about two months to save money because I've come to realize (with my last three nights this week at Phog) that going to a bar is fucking pricey when you're watching your money, especially if they don't sell pitchers of beer.
Last night (Saturday) was my first attempt at this new sober take on partying. It went totally fine. Albeit, I was a wee bit on the quieter-than-usual side - but a house full of people, a fridge full of beer and a big ole bottle of Vodka, and Danny drank Brita water and munched on cashews. I even passed on the joint. I
'm going to try to be completely sober for a month - starting today - just to see how much money I save - and even see how it affects me as a person.
It's a strange feeling - falling asleep on a weekend night with a clear head and waking up feeling rested. I also want to know if liquor is really a thought stimulant or a depressent - or worse yet - a repressive drug. Maybe I have all these thoughts and ideas and maybe even some innovations floating around in my brain, but they are locked into a hidden closet and unable to see the light of day because I keep drowning them in drinkies.
Hell - I might very well be the inventor of the next light bulb - or at the very least, an extremely stylish and fashionable bread box. Anyway you slice it - it will be fun to (for once) be the one sober person who gets to see all his friends get all fucked up. I wanna know if drunken-stoner talks are really as profound as they seem, if you are not stoned.
Something tells me they probably are - but that's yet to be decided.
We shall see. So - sobriety - here I come! Who knows?
Maybe I'll have less late-night munchies and lose some weight!
Maybe I'll be able to focus myself more on doing things I want to do.
I just have to figure out what they are.
Maybe I'll start there.
Regardless - I'll keep you posted on my Status of Sobriety. So far - (if you count yesterday as Day One) I'm a 2/2. If I can stick to this, I'll be so proud!! If not - fuck it. It's not like this is an AA meeting, right?
Right?
RIIIGHT!??!!?
hearts and farts, dan

My Vagina Monologues: DAWN

Part two of my Vagina Monologue epic that began with Sylvia.
For a quick re-cap - this little series is about chicks who were in my life briefly - made an impact - and disappeared.
Come to think of it, it's actually shocking how much this story has in common with Sylvia.
I was just beginning a new year, otherwise known as the emotional chaos called grade eleven.
I was a somewhat content little sixteen year old taking a Parenting class.
Grade eleven always introduced the "fun" courses you always wished you could take when you were in grade nine.
"Society: Challenge and Change", "World Issues", "World Religions", "Personal Life Management".
Yadda.
Yadda.
Yadda.
Of course, the helpful hints and skills I honed during the four months that made up that semester have all gone to waste and are long forgotten by now, but it seemed like a good idea to take a Parenting class at the time.
The room was situated so us kids were split in two: One half on one side - the other half on the other - the desks turned so we were facing each other.
In the corner across from me, sat this strange chick who was new to the school and obviously extremely shy.
Her shoulders were always hunched, she always sat with both hands over her cheeks and usually just stared at her notebook. She never spoke in class and I just assumed she would be someone I never got to know.
I'm not really a SHY person, but I'm not overly talkative with strangers and am not one to go up and introduce myself to people I don't know.
I am a person who stares though - and constanly trying to size people up - and immediately I had Dawn pegged as someone who was a little insecure, and shouldn't be.
She was really pretty. Tall, thin - but curvacious - probably about 5'10", dark eyes - she sort of looked like Kate Winslet, but with black hair.
Just one of those mysterious people - they are in your class - you don't know where they came from, who they are - or who they even hang out with because they sort of disappear after class until the next day.
So - of course - fate had to intervene.
I'm blind.
Not literally - but almost.
I need glasses to recognize my own mother - but I never wear them.
I have this horrific feeling that glasses make me look like a child molester, so I usually only pull them out when absolutely necessary.
So - half-way through the semester I realized I couldn't see a fucking bloody thing on the chalk board from where I was sitting so I asked if I could move.
The only available seat was, of course - next to Ms. Dawn Emery.
We didn't say much - just exchanged nervous "hello"s the first day.
The second day, before class started - she asked me if I was ever in Little League baseball.
I said no - but told her she probably recognized me from Little League because I used to go watch my little sister play.
She was kind of quiet after that.
Anyway we slowly got to know each other in subtle ways.
She drank V8 every morning. She always laughed whenever I spoke in class - giving my two-cents on various hot-button topics such as spanking, fertilization and breast-feeding.
She covered her mouth when she laughed.
We had to work together on various projects - that called to work with the person to your left. She was really nice, but we didn't say much to each other.
The last day of the semester - before Christmas break - she came to school with a card and a candy cane for me. It was a Halmark card that she actually went out and bought and it said "Thanks for being so nice."
I was a little taken aback and not sure what to say, but I thought it was so thoughtful and I felt like a dick because I didn't get her anything.
But really, who gets the kid they sit next to in class something for Xmas?
Next semester - I was taking one grade 12 class - "Note-Making" - another useful course my prestigious school offered and I was nervous because I didn't know many grade 12 kids.
I walked in to a room full of blurry, unfamiliar faces (but I'm used to that, being blind and all) and took a seat in the back corner.
I turned - and sitting next to me: Dawn.
I was immediately relieved.
The class was a total dud - our teacher didn't know what she was doing, so basically - fourth period note-making class was basically a 70 minute chat session with Dawn and I.
She was new to the school, transferred from St.Annes.
A lapsed Catholic who hated her school system and hated the way her uniform made her look.
She liked classic rock and Irish bands, was obsessed with Sinead O'Connor, Gavin Friday and the Pogues. She had a bad body image - thought she had pimples - yet her skin was crystal clear.
That explained why she always had her hands on her cheeks. She thought she was fat - but she wasn't, and she was convinved her teeth were crooked and yellow, but they were completely fine.
Anyway, our talks got more and more personal and I slowly began to realize she was COMPLETELY NUTS.
A total odd-ball loner who had no close friends at the school.
She liked writing - and we used to bring in pieces we wrote and exchange and critique each other's stuff. She used to come watch my plays in Drama class and be amazed that I had the courage to go up on stage. She said she could never do that.
But - she told me how she secretely pretends she's in movies.
How when she's walking down the street, in her head - she is a well known actress - people she passes stop to turn around and check her out saying "Was that Dawn Emery? Oh my god i think it was!"
She imagines herself as an English painter and poet, transferred to a Windsor school because her father is building a hotel here on contract and none of the kids at Herman talk to her because she is so well known, they are intimidated.
Every morning she has fake concerts in her bedroom, where she lip-syncs and air guitars to her favorite songs, infront of an imaginary audience of highschool kids who drop their jaw in awe and amazement.
She was just like me. I immediately started gushing forth every little weird quirk and phobia and daydream I ever had.
We fed off each other.
Dreams of being actors and writers and singers and models. Fantasies of living a bohemian lifestyle in Los Angelas, smoking pot, drinking Long Island Ice Teas and being the talk of the town.
She had a never-ending imagination - she's like no one I have ever met before or since - just one of those people.
Over the semester we became really good friends, calling each other every night, making mix-tapes for each other of our favorite songs, comparing our writing and what-if scenarios.
Around April she asked if I wanted to go to the prom with her. Being a grade eleven kid who never thought he'd be asked to the prom, I immediately said yes - grabbing the opportunity to at least go to SOMEONE's prom.
That night we drank a bottle of long island ice tea and wore sunglasses with our prom outfits, just like supestars. We were in a limo with a few other grade twelve rejects, and in our heads, pretended we were headed for the Academy Awards.
It was a scary night. One of the first times I ever danced infront of other people. I recognized "the older kids" and after that they all recognized me. I was happy for Dawn - she sort of came out of her shell that night a little bit - was dancing with her arms in the air - smiling a gigantic smile...the coolest part was just seeing how much fun she was having.
We never became anything more than friends...and in retrospect that's a good thing. She never had a boyfriend up to that point and I don't think I would have made a very good "first".
It's better that we were just good friends. Great friends.
After she graduated, we stayed in touch that summer. She went out to a bar one night with another girl from school (I was still too young to go) and she met a guy named Cameron.
Her first boyfriend - for real. Within a week she lost her nineteen year old virginity and had plans to move with him to (where else?) Vancouver B.C.
I thought she was moving too fast, but she seemed so excited. She hated Windsor, hated living with her parents...this was something she always wanted to do - kind of a dream of hers - sort of like the way we dreamed of moving away to L.A., she was venturing out west romantically in a whirlwind.
She was going to pursue writing and go to film school. She told me if she needed an actor - she'd give me a call. Rather than it being just a daydream - it felt like a reality - a promise.
The day before she left, she asked me if I remembered the first time we spoke, when she asked me about whether or not I was ever in Little League.
I said of course I remembered.
She told me she was never in Little League and she only made that up to start conversation with me. She said she thought I looked interesting and thought I was funny and different and wanted to get to know me - and she was glad she did.
She said so many nice things to me...I felt like I was always the one who was boosting her self-esteem - but here she was boosting mine. She told me I got her more interested in her own writing and that it was our daydreaming and fantasizing that played a part in her moving away to pursue those very dreams.
We lost contact after that, which is tragic. Oddly enough - it's sort of fate that is keeping us apart. I still see her friend around (who she went to the bar with the night she met Cameron) and she tells me Dawn is doing great, working as a social worker in B.C. and no longer with Cameron.
Deanna - her friend - says she mails Dawn some of my published stories in UPFRONT Magazine and Dawn loves them and is glad I'm still writing.
I gave Deanna my phone number to give to Dawn, but Dawn never called.
Deanna told me Dawn wrote to UPFRONT once, asking for my contact info - but UPFRONT never told me, and never responded to her.
I saw Deanna three weeks ago at the Loop and she told me that Dawn thinks we have just grown apart and that maybe it is dumb that she is still trying to contact me, that I've just moved on and the friendship wasn't as big a deal to me as it is to her.
Deanna convinced her that it is not true - that it's just a comedy of errors that we cannot get ahold of each other. That night Deanna gave me Dawn's phone number and I stuck it in my wallet.
She told me - PLEASE CALL HER. Dawn wants to talk to me, misses me.
I promised I would and was excited to call.
The next day - as fate would have it - somehow - I don't even know how - the phone number was gone.
I haven't seen Deanna since.
I guess I'm writing this blog as proof that the friendship meant SOMETHING MAJOR to me, and my hands are tied - I have no way to contact her.
I've tried name searches on 411.ca, everything.
For now, she's gone.
All I have is a single, wallet sized prom picture of two smiling kids, pretending they were superstars back in 1993.
Miss you Dawn. :)

I, FAGGOT.

My good "buddy" Ian always mentions how badly he would like to have the "what does being gay mean to you" chat when we get hammered.
When else would you have that kind of conversation? I sure as hell can't come to terms with it sober.
Just kidding.
Anyway - thinking about it now and then (I think about a lot of things while at work...it beats thinking about...nothing) I realize my idea of what "gay" is has changed quite a bit.
When I was a kid - I thought "gay men" drove around in white vans, had mustard dripping from their chins and wanted to literally eat the gonads of unsuspecting young boys, such as myself for a mid morning snackie-poo.
I was terrified.
I pictured the mustard-crusted 5 0'clock shadow of "the gay man" scraping like sandpaper against my scrotum just before he sunk his ciggie-stained teeth in and had my privies for lunch. Horrific.
Then, when I was in highschool - "gay" meant those guys who wore pink flourescent shirts, tucked into really REALLY short jean cutoffs with doc marten boots. And always a crew cut. That was SOO not me.
I just shaved my head and eyebrows and wore Madonna t-shirts.
FAGGOT!!! Amazing how dark the blindfolds of denial can make things, isn't it?
Still not completely comfortable with myself or with what being "gay" meant, but I knew I secretly wanted to bang the entire Boys basketball team something fierce.
However, I spent the remainder of my highschool career making out with various chicks and obsessing over the ones who didn't want me.
The love that dare not speak its name rarely crossed my mind, except when members of the Spitfires wore shorts around school.
Meow.
Next, on my academic journey was...*sound trumpets* UNIVERSITY!!!
The dawning of a whole new, progressive, liberal way of thinking.
All of a sudden, hot boys and girls around me were throwing down their football jerseys and burning their bras and coming out of the closet in a full fledged gay-parade.
I was star struck and flabbergasted.
THIS was what all the "gay pride" shit was about.
I came out of my comfy corner in the closet slowly, but steadly, racking up a whole slew of men who fell victim to my "fresh meat on the gay scene" appeal along the way.
All my gay friends who accused me of being gay when I said I was straight were smug with "I told you so" attitudes, like a bunch of fucking Gucci-wearing Hens at a pecking party.
They all of a sudden wanted to be my soulmate - or one night stand - all of a sudden I was take-able and fuckable and another notch to add to their belt - only this time - the biggest claim would be "I had him first."
I let them all have a turn so no one was left out. Just kidding.
I adorned my binders and notebooks with rainbow decals, my car with pride flag bumper stickers and I attended gay pride parades and took gay and lesbian studies classes - practically trying to get a "degree" in being queer.
I engulfed myself in gay history, learned about gay culture - started going to gay bars - even started liking gay music. BLAH.
Fuckin' over-exposure.
I ended up burning myself out, becoming disgusted with "the gay scene" and by the time I was 21 years old, I was a jaded old fag who hated most humans if they had penises.
Fast forward to years later...I spent some time being single - and dating sporadically and dumping guys who didn't "do it for me" on the mental level and finally fell in love with Life Partner.
Now - looking back (and this could change in five years too) I don't think anything of being gay.
I equate it to liking beans.
Some do and some don't. There's no gene, no nurture vs. nature.
Some people like beans, and some don't. Some like them certain ways - others can't stand them at all.
It's not a big deal and it's only EVER been an issue that's caused me drama - if I make it one.
So my take on "faggotry" went from pervert to a fashion train-wreck to fresh meat to slutty serial dater to plain old beans.
It's just a big bag of beans and in truth - no one really cares, nor should they.
Which is why the debate over gay marriage burns my ass so much.
It's just beans, people.
But then again - beans are known to do funny things to people's asses.
Think about it.

hearts and farts,

dan

Shout Out, Yo!

This is a shout-out, yo!
To my homegrrrrl Karmen for buyin' me them kick-ass alka-seltzer tablies for Hexmas, yo!
Them bitches kicked my hangover's mutha-fuckin' ass, know what i'm sayin'?
Props to my grrrl for knowing me so well, yo and hookin' me up all biologically-like.

hearts and farts,

dan

The Alternatives.

*Sigh*...the alternatives.
I've been obsessed with these people since I was in highschool.
The artsy-fartsies, generation X-ers, fashion-hair, doc-marten clad, horned rimmed-glasses-wearing group of eclectic artists, singers, writers and wannabes that make up this group have always fascinated me.
I was at Phog last night getting drunk, watching Emily Carr play - and staring at people wondering what makes them tick. I rarely go out anymore.
That place amazes me.
It's been consistently "the same" for the entire nine years I've been going to it.
There's always a line of people sitting at the bar (always including one older, semi-art-fag with horned rimmed glasses) who are sitting there laughing at each other's inside jokes and their sole purpose for being there seems to be to stare at people and intimidate other patrons (such as myself) when we get up to get a drink.
And they are always SUPER friendly with the bartender.
Like - "best friends" friendly.
Whenever I go to the front for a drink, I always feel like I am intruding on a group of friends by asking for a glass of beer.
Then - there's the "solo poet".
He or she sits in a corner booth and stays hunched over their notebook for the duration of the night, looking up maybe once or twice - but other than that - completely engulfed in what they are writing. Last night I had the impulse to get up, tear the notebook from "solo poet's" table and read aloud what she was writing.
God bless her, I wish I had the guts to go to Phog and write like that..but then again..do I *really* wanna be the solo poet of the bar?
One is enough.
Then there's the "hot fag table".
Usually a table or booth full of pretty girls with ONE token cute young fag in a black t-shirt or sweater who likes really great music, but always gives off the vibe that he is SOOOO not looking for anyone, meanwhile you catch him staring at you three times that night and he pretends to look away when you catch him staring - and then he probably tells all his fashion-girl-friends that some guy was staring at HIM.
And all the fashion girlfriends have a crush on him - and one of them - for real - is in hardcore, full-blown LOVE with him.
And he makes out with her sometimes.
So sad.
Then there's the "musician table".
Shaggy haircuts, sideburns I could only ever DREAM of growing, and facial hair that would make grizzley adams seethe with jealousy - a circular table full of familiar faces in the acoustic rock circuit of Windsor - I fantasize that I'm with them, talking about chord progressions and making alliances with fellow music-makers, creating dynamic duos and song-writing machines together.
Last night the "musician table" consisted of the singer "Chuck", some white guy with dread locks (whose dreadlocks I stared at all night and had to resist the impulse to lean over and sniff them because my friend told me dread locks stink) and a Veruca-Salt looking chick who was in charge of selling Chuck's album, which no one - to my knowlege - bought.
For the record, Emily sat at my table.
But this place seriously blows my mind.
Everyone smokes Drum cigarettes, the roll-yer-own kind, drinks red wine out of rock glasses (I learned that word last night), sips Guiness like it was the sweet jism of the Gods, and scowls at Labatte Blue as if it were the anti-christ.
Then there's the "bi-girls".
Cool hair, hot chicks who could easily change the oil in your car, and then hump you on it without a second thought.
They tickle the egos of the horny men, and wear on the nerves of the antsy lesbians. They make out with other "bi-girls" in their circle, now and then you'll see one of them at the gay bar - but mostly the Loop, and in two years time, they are usually hooked up with some random guy, leaving the one percent of their group who actually WAS a lesbian to the wolverine pack of dykes, where she is inevitably devoured and transformed into a queer-activist and radical artist-lesbian.
I always wonder though...the crazy haircuts, the insane Buddy Holly glasses, the uniform piercings, vintage clothing and obviously VERY expensive shoes..where do these people go during the day? Do they have day jobs? I stare at the goth kid with eye-liner and Korn-braids in his hair, wearing the black skirt I saw at Smart Set - and wonder if he dresses like that ONLY to go out - or if he's the real deal and wears that to work.
Is he ALLOWED to wear that to work?
Does he wear eye-liner and black lipstick on Christmas morning, when he's opening up gifts from his mom and dad, while his little six year old sister goes ga-ga over her new pink barbie doll dream house?
What does SHE think of her big brother?
God this shit bothers me.
Even though I sorta have to dress up for work at "the office" - I still pretty much dress the same way on my own time.
A pair of cords and a sweater or button shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
I couldn't imagine being an "office man" by day - and an alterna-fag with fashionable, trendy clothes by night.
I think I'm seriously missing out, which is why I am so obsessed with these people.
*sigh*. The alternatives.
I wannabe one.
That makes me a wannabe. Not an "alternative".
Labels suck.

hearts and farts,

dan