a life-changing day.

one of the funny things about life-changing events is that, usually, they happen with little warning.

like, if you would have told me that my life was about to change irrevocably as i zipped over the arthur laing bridge on the last day of july this year, i would have said “yeah, right. i don’t think so.”

but this song was playing on the radio as i was crossing the fraser, and while it might not be the greatest musical work ever, i somehow knew upon hearing it that it would be stuck in my head for a rather long time to come:

another thing about these life-changing moments: the event timelines seem to click into itself in eerie ways, to the degree that some might say that it was meant to be by some higher power that their life changed. i naturally reject this; there is nothing to suggest that there is anything pre-ordained about my life (or anyone else’s).

but it still is strange sometimes when you ask yourself “how the hell did i get here in life?”

and sometimes stranger still when the fates offer an instant response.

free write.

i’m gonna write. write write write.

not about anything really. just ’cause i have crap on the brain.

a lot of crap. not really about one thing in general. but about many things in particular. like how everything is related in my situation. how i got here. where i’m going and how the hell i’m going to survive myself in the process. ’cause i’m eating myself alive and although i’m tasty i’m just too salty for my own good. (don’t infer anything from that.)

but i am outside. smoking away at a belmont. and wondering how the life of me has been pulled out from under. and whatever else remains in that frigid lake upon which i’m skating. whatever brilliant secrets exist in that great dark below.

another night of insomnia.

maybe it’s the busy workweek ahead. maybe it is due to an unwise hit of caffeine earlier tonight. maybe it is the general malaise due to the busy events of the weekend which, while entertaining, left me with a degree of soul-searching.

or maybe it’s the other matter. the one that has been killing me for a month or two. the one that i’ll probably keep silent from the few people who should probably hear it most.

sometimes, i really hate the struggle that we all play out between mind, body and soul. in all honesty, i wish that i could turn my emotions off for the next two weeks or so. but ever since quinn led me to my realization, that is impossible. and it is for the best, i suppose, that i recognize that i’m feeling the way i am.

but i can’t stand that my true feelings likely harbour seeds of destruction. and the results of letting those seeds be sown would crush me more than i’m being crushed.

but i’m a big boy. and i will overcome this.

i just wish it were easier.

jon rogers’ at dawn

There is a park
In the lung of the city
That breathes in cadence to
Time and money and time.

Its lawn is green,
Well-used
Like a two-sword breadth of
Green carpet trod upon
In the name of Pomp and Substance.

Every day, nearly every hour,
The homeless rub shoulders
With new neighbours.
Every day, Atlantis
Silices away a bit more fat
and calls it “renewal.”

But we three kings
Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar,
Cross that threshold for
A pristine hour.
We move together though we’ve moved apart
To rule this parcel wisely, justly,
Briefly.

I do not step into this park alone.

some reflections, made in water.

today, i went swimming.

this is an offshoot of a very regular and fairly intense regimen of physical activity as of late. aside from cycling everywhere, i have been going to the gym about 4-5 times a week. yay for me, i guess. what has brought me to this point, who knows? but i do feel very satisfied with myself, and in the span of only three weeks or so, i do seem to notice a few changes (for the better, thankfully) in my body. it has even gotten to the point where muscle soreness the next morning is a very welcome feeling.

why did i swim today? the weather was beautiful, and i didn’t have time to go to the gym for a proper session. i figured i would take advantage of the mount pleasant outdoor pool – it is, after all, likely to be demolished after this season ends in a week’s time.

i went in my trusty brown shorts and my red hoodie. braving the breeze, i bared my skin to the air, and then to the water, wearing nothing more than a speedo, my earrings and my bracelet.

///

some of my most vivid memories of childhood are painful ones.

like most long-ago recollections, time will blur and dull the sharpest images. so i don’t really remember many individual instances of where life had me bled. but waking up bloodied next to a dumpster in an alley with your wallet missing leaves no question as to what happened, even if the original event is fuzzy.

an old friend of mine – who i have fallen out of contact with – once had a photo clipped out of a magazine taped to a mirror in his university dormroom. it was quite a ridiculous image, as i recall: a young, attractive, blond, sun-kissed caucasian male had been captured with a lop-sided, goofy grin from ear to ear, eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses, with smooth skin fading from jaw to neck to naked shoulder.

a lot of us fresh-faced gay boys would put up such things in our dormrooms – we were (or at least i was) pretty much fulfilling the dreams of what we wished our adolescence could have been. but what was remarkable about this photograph was that my friend gently defaced it so that it read “one day, i’ll be as beautiful as you!” with an arrow pointed to the model’s toothy smile.

at that time, the pains of my being kicked out of my mother’s house were still quite fresh in my mind, having only been three years prior. since my parents split up – and really, even before that – i had been subjected to a horrible bout of psychological abuse, one that i doubt i will ever learn to forgive. really, barring the saliva, it was like being spit on…day after day after day for the better part of 16 years.

the feelings that i remember the most – the ones that time can’t seem to rust and make brittle – are the ones where my faults were so brutally exposed and magnified. penalties were severe; a simple grounding would have proven ineffective, as i had no freedoms to take away. i was subject to de facto house arrest, quartered with a monster who treated her domain like a veritable room #101. sadly, anything i did would land me in trouble.

i would be harangued for my habit of mumbling on occasion, or for being picked on at school, or for not doing well at math (something that has always been very difficult for me beyond basic arithmetic). i caught flak for being clumsy. i was punished for reading books more intellectually challenging than dr. seuss (no disrespect to the good doctor, of course). i was criticized for the results of going through puberty. i was forced to reveal my thoughts on paper, and then have them shared between all three of us: me, my mother and my brother.

basically, i was convinced that i had no real value as a human being, since i would never amount to anything of significance, let alone to being a doctor or a lawyer (my mother’s preferred careers for her sons, due solely to their salaries).

when i was finally forced out of my house for committing the most grave act of communing with my demon father, i briefly considered running across the upper levels highway at night – since i figured my life was basically over at 16. i was a wreck – a kid who had been mentally beaten to gruel. i had nothing to live for, really: it was like being crushed from all sides, much like a grape pounded to pulp and juice, only to spoil in the cask and turn to cheap vinegar.

///

as i pushed water away from me, i recalled the lessons of years ago: stretch far, kick hard, keep your knees in, look forward (not down), breathe out through your nose and in through your mouth.

swimming is not too far removed from dance: it is an expression of yourself in movement. in essence, be proud of who you are, and you will go far.

once i stepped out of the pool to towel off, i caught my reflection in a window. and possibly for the first time, i saw the person i so desperately wanted to be growing up. i am long and lean and tanned, headstrong, confident and – gradually – more disciplined. i walk in public with revealing yet tasteful attire, not because i am proud, but because i am comfortable.

and it got me thinking to julien powell and his defaced poster on his wall many moons ago. although i had never done the same thing in my room, i had done my own version of what he declared he would do. i hope that, one day, i get to meet the good man that he has certainly become.

it has really taken me this long – nearly ten years, over a third of my life – to get to a point where i can accept myself as a person. and that is maybe why life is so fragile for me sometimes. i cannot afford another decade of misery, especially when the keeper of the keys to room #101 is myself.

on the burrard bridge question (and on paternalism).

while i still have the heart of a social democrat, there is a tiny libertarian inside of me.

and that libertarian says that, for the most part, i know what’s best for me.

—

now, when it comes to people arguing over the burrard street bridge bike lane trial, and all of the cyclist-bashing that is going about, i have three things to say to these motards who think that they own the road:

1. whether or not i wear a helmet is not your concern, much as i really couldn’t care less whether you wear a seatbelt. of course, my friends are different – they can express their concern for my safety and have it register in my head. but if you are angry at cyclists for not obeying the rules of the road, don’t touch the helmet issue. and while you’re at it, stop whining about critical mass and saying that the 10 minutes you have to wait are proof of a left-wing conspiracy against you. also, if you can’t wait for 10 minutes in your car without having a nervous breakdown, you have a problem. (here’s a suggestion – get out of your car…it might do you some good!)
2. yes, cyclists will sometimes break the rules of the road. but so do cars…all the time. let’s be honest here: when’s the last time you did a rolling stop? when’s the last time you went over the speed limit, even just by 10 km/h? when’s the last time you didn’t signal? if you say that you have always followed every rule of the road at all times, i’ll call bullshit.
3. regarding no. 2 above, when a car hits a bike, the cyclist will either be severely injured or die. always. helmet or no. so when i get mad at you for passing me too closely, think about that. m’kay?

basically, i believe that cars and bikes can live together. but cyclists have been making concessions to motorists for decades.

the shift that we want to see in cycling will not happen until people feel safe to ride a bike without a helmet. so, really, you know what this city needs, bike-wise? a ride-to-rule campaign.

fellow cyclists! take up a whole lane! take all the time you need! be brave, and show the world what we’re made of.

this is…

This is

A Poem, written on
a daytime planner
in Seattle, in a bar,
in the rain, with a
friend, who is underage,

and probably wondering, day-
dreaming, what the fuck
we are doing here, in the
absence of sunlight, or
strategy or stablility, or foresight, or
a social safety net, which
has been whittled away by

a pioneering spirit and
fiscal responsibility, because
Jesus would have wanted it this way,
even though he lives in
Galilee.

It’s full of arctic magic.

more troubles.

the trip is going well, but my life just doesn’t seem to get any better back home. with every passing minute, i have less and less reason to return to vancouver.

and to be honest, my life might be better if i didn’t. a summer in san francisco would be unreal. at the very least it might keep me from sinking back into a rut,  regardless of the genuinely kind things that mr. guy babineau tells me in private.

on bc politics.

we have elected gordon campbell’s liberals to a third straight majority. congratulations are in order to the man, i suppose, but i wouldn’t shake his hand too hard. it’s not like carole james was a very hard opponent. after all, i’m not sure how you can win such a decisive victory after losing the leaders’ debate miserably.

y’see, as much as they will refuse to admit it, the NDP and the liberals are pretty much the same. a few months ago, i had lunch with an old friend, an insider with the liberal party. we agreed that the main difference between the liberals and the NDP are who is paying them off.

STV was a failure, sure. but it didn’t have to be. couldn’t the big parties have stepped up to the plate? couldn’t they have both campaigned on behalf of fairness? hell, the NDP love to pretend that the liberals think that they govern by divine grace: if that were so, maybe the liberals could just do as they did back in the early ’50s and change the electoral system unilaterally. of course, that would be rich.

here’s what sucks about canada. we are the worst combination of individualism and communalism that could possibly exist in the free world. we are so spoiled that we don’t even want to risk anything on something that could be construed as being more fair. no, instead we are confident that the government will do everything for us as we like, right? of course not!

maybe i’m just upset that my neighbourhood will be overrun by traffic in the next few years as a result of this. maybe i’m upset that translink’s funding crunch is still going to happen.

or maybe i’m starting to understand a bit more about america, and why i’ve started to fall in love with this place…just a bit.

fucking UBC!

i hate the UBC administration. so. fucking. much.