Finally a new friend!

Woke up at 4:15 in the morning smelling cigarette smoke in my bedroom and feeling sickened of course and momentarily wished with the purest sincerity that every cigarette-sucking dolt on earth would suddenly turn into a tiny puff of black carcinogenic dust and drift away on the solar winds, never to be thought of again my any member of humanity.

Then I sent a surprisingly gentle message to the landlord.

Got back to sleep finally around 9:30, woke up at 11 and hopped the route 4 bus to the cathedral for an oatmeal and yogurt breakfast. Hung out there for 45 minutes reading The Tolkien Encyclopedia and making a bunch of notes re the D&D hosting business.

Had excellent church-made soup for lunch, with bread, hopped the route 2 bus to Helping Hands Mission where I was expecting to see the Flaming Liberal (who has actually bailed for the Green Party, the little nutter) for the first time in at least five years but he never showed. Met some swell other folks though and chatted about nursing and volunteering and North Bay and game nights and did some more reading and note-taking and at 4PM I bussed it back home and thankfully did not run into the the Diabolical Smoking Duo who will probably view me as Enemy Numero Uno for a few days before caving in again to the finance-based behavior pacifiers of the all-powerful Marginalized Persons Economy.

Pretty darn good day by my standards and I am still buoyed by last night's dream which I still remember well:

I went to visit pal Earth Writer at the hospital where she had recovered and was being discharged and her roommate who was also being discharged was an Italian Greyhound or Whippet-looking dog and he and I fell in love and he followed us out and came along and we drove Earth Writer home and then the pup, bursting with excitement, came home with me where we knew we'd live happily ever after.

One of the best dreams I've ever had. So there.

My dreams of you

The last four dreams I've had which were recalled by waking memory were all dreams of old friends: writers, gaming buddies and such loved ones as Earth Writer, Aqualad and Dog Whisperer. Covid has insidiously revealed, to my surprise, a capacity for loneliness.

Some friends (and family) I may have inadvertently alienated long before.

Facebook had become a force of unbearable toxicity to me and in a period of desperation, when it had become a source of anguish to my troubled sensitivities, I began severing connections. Stupidly; very very stupidly, I unfriended those who were avenues to subject matter I could no longer bear to think about. There were such better logistical solutions to deal with that but I was not very savvy at the time, and somehow did not consider that I might be insulting them. I had no such intention. Before long I realized my mistake and was too cowardly to go around apologizing. And a short time later I just left facebook altogether, which probably should have been my initial act.

But later the new "Scooterville Tigers" Marketing and Media gig seemed to necessitate that I embrace all social media and so I returned. Since then I have learned how to use facebook more positively, sparingly and safely.

It's November and NaNoWriMo has begun, hampered of course by the pandemic. My world now is small. My confidence is small. Health recovery is my only real bag. Commitments outside of that would be monstrously daunting. One step at a time.

But my thoughts are joyfully with writer pals this month and I hope to do some vicarious living through them, and one such friend is Sick Boy; a victim of my facebook purge. I don't know how well apologies might be received, but if you're reading this, Sick Boy. I hope you are still running the HamNaNo group. I will be coming around online to say Hi to everyone; not to participate though, and for what its worth, I love you and I miss you. And I'm very sorry.

Seaside

Help 4-yr old Daksh be reunited with his Canadian-resident parents

Get this Monopoly game over with!

Uh oh… running late. It’s four in the morning but I’m gonna call it Wednesday night!

The grounded, gracious, good-natured, green thumbed, friend of the biosphere; the Green Lady; Earth Writer has given us the good word and it is…

Games

I guess she wanted to go easy on me. I have a gargantuan heap of material on this subject. One of my premier hobbies is building board games. Many are variants of games already out there. Many are my own inventions. A couple are straight up rip-offs where it’s more affordable to produce my own version than to buy the product. That said, I do purchase games as often as I reasonably can. Their makers deserve their income but my personal game appetite far exceeds my budget.

My 30 or 40 creations tend to fall into a few different categories and I shall succinctly reveal one interesting category tonight and perhaps another later in A-to-Z month.

This category is the modernized version. There are old time board games out there which still have much to offer but bear badly outdated, undesired components by today’s high standards. The copyright holders have no impetus to replace their classic products and no one else has the legal permission to.

I however, don’t need to give a shit about the legal realm because I’m not selling anything. Some examples (the titles are working titles):

Masterpiece Pro

The old art auctioning game. The dynamics here are very flat and random and yet the game was popular and might still be?

In my version each player is both artist and collector and earns income buying and selling. You actually create little works of art which can be perfectly rudimentary and which are added to the game permanently so that the realm of possibilities grows the more times you play the game. There are specific game-bot collectors and galleries which come into the fold and affect the value of different pieces. The dynamics around value evolve from a combination of random factors and strategy.

Clue Millenium

Gone are the goofy rolls for movement. Each room is only one space away from its neighbours but the layout of the rooms and door placements makes every room slightly unique. There are nine suspects and nine weapons now. What? That will make the game too long! No, I don’t think so. The clue-gathering will happen much faster for a few reasons. I may include a strategy guide and advance “logic charts” which show the less experienced player how to more quickly isolate the secret cards.

Each character has their own unique combination of movement rate, number of starting clue cards and weapon status. Some players have to grab weapons on their way to their destination in order to call on it while others have the power to summon weapons to their current location. Thus there are three factors with each combination intended to sum up to equal overall advantage. So you choose your avatar based on the strategies you prefer.

Monopoly Village

No bartering or bargaining. No waiting forever to start building properties. This version will never be dragged out a long time.

There are villagers of various professions who gradually enter the game and are dragged about the board, sometimes helping, sometimes harming, the players who encounter them. There are many new dynamics. For instance, some hotel builds actually manifest institutions instead, which have their specific effects on those spaces. It’s a very different and fast-paced game.

Oh and when you are eliminated from the game: You may if you wish, return as a zombie! The zombies can not win the game but they can help to end it more quickly by killing off or converting the other players, so that you can more quickly move on to the next game at game night!

I’m looking forward to completing these “prototypes” and convincing pals to play-test them.

Bye for now!

M is for Middling

In the last 36 hours I have:

• Lost my wallet and $190.
• Negotiated with burdened outdoor renovation workers to access my own driveway.
• Attended the 8th or 9th annual Wafflepalooza of which I was a founding father.
• Hugged friends.
• Reminisced with my dear writer pals concerning the inspiring ascent of The Liaison, who departed oh so young on the verge of a writing career breakthrough.
• Hugged more friends.
• Tinkered with yet another indulgent mindcrack lair.
• Found the wallet!
• Barely -- barely -- endured the 45-minute torture of an ultrasound session in which the tech sweated buckets trying to push holes through me (drawing blood even but not much).
• Butted heads politely with a senior bank associate trying to smother Gramps and I in a blanket of red tape and liability paranoia leaving me exhausted and almost hopeless before a wonderful junior associate, a young black man with brilliant instincts, wisdom and kindness gave us everything we needed as soon as the former departed.
• Parked strategically so Gramps could piss in a parking lot.
• Talked about life and literature with Earth Writer and remembered how we used to be closer (I think).
• Attended Scooterville NaNo Thank God Its Over celebration.
• Won nice little prizes.
• Hugged friends I’m very glad to find are still friends.
• Sat in the car hoping that a young person I will always care for will come to understand I would never ever want to hurt his feelings and that I only want his life to be better and him to be happy. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

I’m in the middle of things.

Peace.

Together

I’m noticing, over the last few days, how increased mindfulness (or wakefulness etc.) doesn’t only avail wisdom but also the simplest intelligence. I have had many meetings and social engagements lately and have been a little more on the ball and have noticed how much clearer I see the relationship dynamics without the nigglings - the wisps - of pride and paranoia twisting my perception. All these relationships look so much more joyful, beautiful and worthwhile and full of possibility through detached observation.

The word detachment seems to scare people off though. I’m talking about perception that is without these false filters of need; dependency; expectation. I find this hard to describe. For me it comes through organic trust in the lessons I have learned, first-hand, about the illusions spun by instinctive mind. For me detachment has no negative connotations. It is not about lack of love, for instance. In fact it avails so much more love.

I’m sure that Tolle or Buddhist literature would describe a different path for finding this detachment; a path or paths which I seem to have forgotten precisely. I recall these readings too dimly at the moment. For me it came through the habit of creative solitude and a bottomless fascination for truth; or more accurately it turned out, the absence of truth and the forensic study of its displacement. It is why, in my more powerful state of former years, I was strong in leveraging influence; nudging people more toward creativity, before I began faltering and eventually withdrawing, more intentionally of late.

I am reminded the advantages of clarity when one is not so self-interested in the dynamics of relationships. It is enough that we are all alive, human and imperfect together, and taking on this great drama together, as witnesses to the universe, and to our own potential as a creature of harmony; both internal and collectively.

Friends and neighbours

I took Aqualad out for lunch at the Great Old German restaurant; his favourite Scooterville eatery where it is decidedly uncorporate. Large portions. Barely marked-up wine. We tackled the Plate for Two which I will describe only as a mound of exciting food over a thick giant schnitzel on a platter on a hot plate set between us. We are accomplished Pro Devourers though both on self-improvement courses and less indulgent than usual. I insisted he take the leftovers home.

It’s funny. The task of writing is much more than a report of what has been on your mind. The very act produces new thoughts. It is an invaluable act of reflection; of internal conversation. And here at this moment I am realizing that he reported (let it slip?) that he’d been present there two weeks ago. That makes sense as it was his birthday at the time. By coincidence that would have also fallen just after my first proposal that I take him there as a reward for surviving his dental surgery and flu combination. Which means that… not only was I not invited to his birthday dinner for the first time in years, but I was very deliberately not invited.

Strange perhaps that I don’t feel especially hurt. I am accustomed to thinking of them as my second family and that, clearly has become an indulgence worthy of embarrassment so I will stop.

I have seen Earth Writer and Dog Whisperer only twice in the last half year; Aqualad three times now, and his delightful girlfriend zero.

There were awkward moments at the cottage last summer and I’m confident that there were complete misunderstandings about matters of no real consequence to me. If their cooling stems from only that, then that is a tragic mistake. And if it stems from more than that, which I assume it must, then I am at a complete loss. I am blissfully unaware of whatever failings I have perpetrated, at least in terms of friendship. But failings have been a theme for me for some time now. No reason to assume they should all have fallen onto my own radar.

The greater tragedy is that Aqualad (if I understand correctly) is in essence turning down the greatest gift a human being could receive for reasons that do not sound sincere but might be. I think it more likely that he is humouring me; managing me; not wanting to say that he has no reason to believe in me.

And it’s true there is no reason to believe in me; no reason for anyone to. I look for opportunities to help those I love and those who demonstrate the rare mental fortitude in the rare and vital realms that I have advance experience in. But I did not graduate from that rare academy. I got close and then backed away. Or did I flunk out perhaps?

Aqualad cannot possibly have much understanding of what he is turning down. We’ve discussed it far too little. But a close bond remains between us it seems. And there is no deadline. Whatever I do manage to accomplish when I break out of this fucking cocoon, may change his regard for me, and in the mean time I will look for opportunities to nudge him in useful directions as opportunities arise.

Not that our dynamics are a motivator for me now. What motivates me is honestly just between the universe and I. And the universe, I must remember, is not ours to command. We can only offer our best advice and then let causality do what it must.

It really is surprising though, that I don’t feel especially hurt. I would have expected to be.

At the core of my “2019 resolution” whether it shows between the lines or not, is the intention to be mindful. Perhaps already I am.

I returned home from our German smorgasbord, parked afar, and walked; exercised. I heard my next-door neighbour’s door opening, a usual precursor to awkward endearments; a fantasy that this perversion called suburbia is some sort of community. But I found myself looking eagerly, and it was the man who emerged and he wore a great smile. My own was immediate. We traded happy comments on the lovely mild weather. Mine were sincere and I’ll assume his were too. Then as I turned up the drive way the lady appeared. “I can’t believe it’s 2019 already!” she said.

“I know,” I said, then sincerely: “Time is cruel.” She laughed. I smiled.

Maybe it is some sort of community.

 

Escape

I remember when there was no issue at cottages around the presence of cell phones. If there was an issue surrounding the wisdom of group solitude and its protection, the issue was whether to allow newspapers or not. How far we haven’t come.

I remember cottage vacations where sitting around telling stories all day and sitting around telling stories all evening by camp fire was the gold standard and the norm. Yes, cottage vacations were an escape but we couldn’t help but escape to something special. Because not much followed us .

For years now I have not glimpsed this magic. Cottage vacations, for most people it seems,, are almost entirely escape; from employment mostly. And so the wonders of technology allow them to escape from only what they choose and as long as they keep their noses close to their cell phones nothing precious will be missed out on.

For me there is nothing to escape. There is only opportunity: for sustained conversation. The kind that burrows deep and forges stronger connections between us and stirs up insights and revelation; the kind in which anecdotes lead to questions and answers which boil down to one thing: how do we live our lives better?

Still, I enjoy spending time with loved ones even if we don’t do it my way.

I shot a bit of video; too little to do much with it really, but Pen Pal really wanted to see it so I threw this together. I need much practicing at video and audio editing so that I can put some proper music videos out at some point. I need to give my songs some kind of life before I entirely forget how to play them. If I haven’t already. Here’s the latest effort:

How doth the city sit solitary…

…that was once full of people.

I remember many occasions sitting in my Streetsville apartment looking out the big window, contemplating at great length and seeing all these structures and machinations of society: I had never felt so alone; so utterly alien. At the time I regarded this with some degree of emotional peril; not as much as you’d expect, but more than I later would. My yawning separateness was to some degree just another observation; another new important revelation in a long roster of them. It was then that I found some comfort in that opening line from the book of Leviticus and then that I began reading the Christian bible for the first time since grade school, and then that I began finding wisdom instead of nonsense; wisdom which few priests would, so far as I imagined, ever interpret much the same way I was. It was then that I began to sense that much of this “religious” material must have been borrowed from other sources and that much of it was not intended at its roots to be a tool of Christian doctrine at all.

That alien feeling persisted for a long time, varying in intensity.

I remember a long night wide awake in my attic eyrie which I rented from Long Time Companion; the friend formerly known in blog space as Peter Pan. I’m pleased to say that he has come a long way, finding some peace, and considering that when we were breaking up years prior to this rental arrangement and I’d threatened to murder him (and possibly meant it) in a fit of outrageous jealousy - I guess I’ve come a long way too.

That night I’d felt the weight of this threshold; this decision; this gateway to… what? Enlightenment? This reckoning that I’d found no one yet who was willing to take my hand and proceed with me.

It was that night when I strummed the guitar and the song The Line came out: a simple three-chord ditty in which I tried to voice this conundrum; this great step in evolution (or so it seemed to me then) and my concern that I was becoming too alien from everyone around me and that I was losing the capacity to relate and thus to communicate and thus the potential to teach or to guide.

I did not want my learning; these immensely powerful and useful understandings to benefit me alone!

What I don’t remember is any conscious decision; any intention to back away from that threshold, but indeed that is what I did; not ready to give up on others; and not feeling any confidence that I’d ever be able to reach anyone again if I took this step and launched too far into another realm.

I remember being surprised to so easily embrace a reverse-pretentiousness, how easy it was for me to “play dumb” in a way, to reveal no insights in day to day circumstances where I was wise in relevant terms but wise enough, also, to know that what I had to say would not be understood or not be embraced and so I remained quiet and nodded like some very simple man. I was surprised how easily I could keep my ego in check.

I remember feeling lonely at times because I had no one I could be completely myself with. I literally had no secrets. This is a huge statement to make. I doubt it can rarely ever be honestly said. I had no secrets but yet I had to keep quiet about some things, not for shame (I could admit any flaw or fault I was aware of) but for other people’s comfort. I had no energy or any mandate to challenge everyone’s illusions all day every day.

When I met Neo and observed what astounding mental freedoms he possessed, I knew he was very special and that I had to make myself available to him. And with the brainstorming of excellent associate JazzLion, I began writing a novel in which I tried to plant all my most important and relevant understandings, with the thought that if he read it (along with others if it got published) and was of the kind of mind I had been crediting him with, then as an adult he might unearth that book and look me up. I did not indulge in any romantic notions about such an encounter but in essence I could imagine him saying, “Dude! Remember me? I understand what you’re saying here! And I thought we should talk I don’t imagine you’ve been expecting many people to get it…”

Instead Neo took such an immediate interest in me that we became associates when grade school graduation should have otherwise separated us.

In hindsight, maybe that was all for the worse. Another regret? Should I have finished the damn book instead, and put it in his hands and said goodbye?

One of the joys in our association; call it friendship; call it mentorship, whatever, was that I had someone I could be one hundred per cent myself with. I regarded him as completely trustworthy. Not trustworthy in that I could trust him with my secrets (because I felt I had none) but trustworthy in that I trusted him to be able to handle the truth; to be able to handle the things I had to say.

For the first time in quite a while I had someone I did not feel alien with.

This is the crux of my broken-heartedness.

Imagine being a human but growing up on some far away planet where everyone is wildly different than you and finally you meet another human; the only other human on the planet, and you just feel so at home finally, and your friendship blossoms and then after eight years he just says, yeah I can’t do this anymore bye. 

Sometimes these days I think surely we’ll get back together again. Surely he’ll come to his senses.

But sitting here, trying to be a little present; a little wakeful, I think: How carefully have I monitored this alien issue over the last eight years?

Am I sure that no one else is capable of letting me be me, without me having to be concerned about scaring them off?

I know that the Ponderer and Skeeter Willis are frequent readers of this blog (god knows why; it is so scattered and indulgent) and I must ask with honesty; not to flatter, are they not willing and capable?

I wonder too, about Dog Whisperer and Earth Writer and Aqua Lad. I barely knew them eight years ago. Have we not developed an almost familial bond?

On that note what about my mother and my brother?

Surely JazzLion and Renaissance Kid and Global Citizen; though they live rather out of the way to varying degrees, so to rely on them regularly would be difficult.

And the Earnest Chef too. And The Healer. Thinking about them now, are they not slam dunks? Have I not already felt free with them and just not done the accounting?

Perhaps even the Thoughtful Educator. Haven’t all these relationships broadened and solidified over these years? Have I failed to give some special people fair credit?

And then there’s Dr. Lock of course. I’m surprised as I think about this now - how many friends I am able to consider in this regard

Perhaps I need to sample the waters; open up to more people the same way I did to Neo and see how it goes; if they are comfortable or not.

It would help, I’m sure, if I could be my gentler self with them. Which would happen naturally I’m sure if I could bring myself to be more present; more mindful. I might not be ready though. Let me cradle myself in the writing for now.

With regards to that evolution, I suppose this is another regret: When Neo asked, But why wouldn’t you want to embrace enlightenment if you could? Why ever choose otherwise? For some reason I gave him a cryptic answer that was more about my remaining addictions; my susceptibility to identity, instead of a straight answer. God knows why. It just happened.

I should have told Neo the more simple and sincere perspective: that I was waiting until he was ready to go there with me.

Movie Tips Volume 3

Blade Runner 2049 ****^1/2

(2017) Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford

Oh wow. It’s rare to find a sequel so legitimate and responsible. Add a lot of spectacular visuals and moral and emotional depths worthy of the original masterpiece. Significant achievement which I know a lot of people don’t get for some reason. Loved it.

The Nice Guys ***^1/2

(2016) Ryan Gosling, Russell Crowe

Almost took a pass on this and glad I didn’t. Very decent performances raised a competent script to a very amusing level. Let’s give them a mulligan on the cringe-worthy Abbot and Costello homage scene; shall we?

Blazing Saddles **

(1974) Cleavon Little, Gene Wilder

Eyebrow-raising experiment with the undisguised aim to offend every possible population segment as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Achievement unlocked.

Cloudburst ****

(2011) Olympia Dukakis, Brenda Fricker

Cute story with a very amusing Dukakis performance.

Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things ***

(2015) Dan Harris, Joshua Beck

Worthwhile look at one of the many lifelines for mankind’s tenuous future, all of which must come together and soon. And almost certainly won’t. (Netflix)

For Ellen****

(2012) Paul Dano, Margarita Levieva

Loved this simple, sensitive little Paul Dano gem. Don’t be disappointed in the ending. It’s perfect!

Rogue One****

(2016) Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Alan Tudyk

As a kid, nothing could, or would ever, beat the magic of Star Wars epics A New Hope or Empire Strikes Back. But as a flawed adult who just may have lost too much innocence: This was easily the most amusing and competent Star Wars flick yet; magic falling no longer on the radar.

Blue is the Warmest Colour ****

(2013)  Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos

Brilliant vertical movie. Simple plot. An exploration of human fallibility as rich, textural, sensual and intimate as you can find. Very special. Try not to view the sizzling lesbian sex as pornography! I thought it far more sincere than that, and perfectly appropriate to the rare goal for which this film strives.

The Crucible ****

(1996) Daniel Day Lewis, Winona Ryder

There’s an alarming and dated feel to this witchy Salem thriller packed with dynamite Lewis scenes. I’ll even give Ryder the thumbs up for surviving the horrendous task of having to dance so dangerously close to the line of satire without stepping over.

Oz the Great and Powerful **

(2013) James Franco, Michelle Williams

Oh dear. This looked to me like an aimless and pointless pile of doo-doo. Did I miss some irony somewhere? I fear it may indeed have been an aimless and pointless pile of doo-doo. Let’s hope I’m somehow wrong.

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind ****

(1984) animated film by Hayao Miyazaki

Such a strange and sober quality to this wide-eyed tragic anime genre whose waters I dip my toe in so infrequently. This one is a classic and I can see why. I wish Earth Writer would view it. I felt all along it was the kind of story she would write.

The King of Comedy ***

(1982) Robert De Niro

Dark unsettling material in drag as light comedy: The flick mimics the mind of the hero, or anti-hero, played perfectly off-kilter in that subtly dangerous manner that is classic De Niro.

A Brilliant Young Mind **

(2014) Asa Butterfield

The monotonous main character performance was probably not Butterfield’s fault but more the director’s. Nor is he to blame for the sadly contrived ending. Give this a pass.

He’s and She’s and In-Betweens

I’m meeting with Earth-Writer tonight, as National Novel Writing Month approaches, largely to provide feedback on her novel draft which I recently enjoyed. It features a delightful character without a reproductive arrangement of a standard formation. Perhaps hermaphroditic is the correct term? I have no idea if that term is currently considered respectful or not but you probably get the idea.

I found it very challenging to read the narrative concerning this character; let’s call him/her “Taylor” for now. Each time the narrative came back to Taylor from somewhere else I would trip all over the pronoun “they” or “their”, the same way I have tripped over it many times when talking to friends about common associates who have recently discovered a lack of gender-specific identity within their own psyche. I instinctively (selfishly) do not like this solution. To me it hampers the fluidity of communication. I keep thinking we are talking plural and must shake my head and realize again that we’re talking one person of unspecified gender.

I can see that we’re going to have a difficult time as a society coming to terms with these non-binary gender ideas when it comes to language.

There are some intelligent people out there with great respect for science and logic and who recognize that language is indeed a construct of science and logic who insist that a person with a penis who reports they “feel” like a girl is indeed still a boy regardless and should be labeled appropriately in terms of law and societal operation (such as which bathroom to use).

On the other hand there are places where non-binary is an official legal option with regards to gender.

The number of personal friends I have who have physically changed gender or are considering it or who have come out as having significant thoughts about it has gone from zero to five in the course of the last two or three years. The number of tertiary associates under these circumstances is probably about ten, I’m not bothering to count. Plus who knows how many are in that state but in the closet?

At a party recently, one of the hosts was in the state of thinking themself a they and many of the party guests showed a lot of outward signs that they were probably in the same camp or else were indeed fully post-operative trans-gendered - or else fitting some particular variant of the wide trans spectrum.

It was a very new experience for me to witness this and I am grateful for it. These folks (some of each cross-direction should that interest you) were obviously well-acquainted, perhaps via some official support community - and they were very gentle and loving toward one another. An outsider might even get the impression of a poly amorous subculture but I have no evidence of that, nor did I inquire. Though the trans-gender idea is instinctively a foreign one to me, I found myself disarmed by this group. I found them to be quite lovely and graceful people.

My heart totally goes out to anyone in such a circumstance. I would like them to feel comfortable and happy with whoever and whatever they are - or feel like they are. But dictating what pronouns other people use to describe them is not necessarily entirely wise in my opinion. Let me close here with a few suggestions:

1. We all would do well to try not to care and worry quite so much about gender identity. Everyone is unique and deciding what gender someone should be labeled does not automatically confer any facts about that person.

2. We all would do well to be less sensitive as to what label someone uses when referring to us. What matters about you is what you think of you; not anyone else. If you decide tomorrow you have become a “he” instead of a “she”, well fine. Someone calling you a “he” doesn’t make you one. It only betrays how they instinctively think of you. And frankly, everyone you have ever met (and I’m talking about all of us when I say “you”) has a different idea of who you are and those ideas will all be different, and different than your own idea, and different than the real authentic you.

3. We all would do well, I think, to remember that words have multiple meanings and that words are only signposts. It is not words that matter, it is intention that matters. “Woman” has always been meant to specify the female gender but “Man” was not originally intended to specify male gender. It was supposed to mean human. I think we would do well to try to allow such words as “man” and “he” and “him” to reclaim that unspecificity and let them all mean “person”

4. To those who propose the new pronoun “Ze” as a non-specific alternative to he and she, I urge you to keep in mind that the words he and she come from the mouth instinctively. Our language/communication programming does not include a pause for thought at such a juncture. Nobody will automatically absorb Ze into their lexicon instinctively, and so expecting people to use it in conversation - much like expecting people to suddenly reverse their he-she usage right after you come out of the closet as trans-gender-feeling, can amount to a bit of a witch hunt. You’ll discover that people have a firm instinctive preconception of your gender and when in conversation with another person, frankly, their idea of your gender is not necessarily less relevant than your own. I think it’s only realistic to be patient. As for the Ze idea, hey, we can go ahead and start using it but it will likely take root in writing well ahead of speech - if it takes root at all - for language is a process of group organics and cannot be intentionally regulated except in contract law! - and we’ll have to be okay with that. I doubt the word will ever find its way out of my mouth - and I can’t possibly apologize for that - but it might, if we start to put it in writing - become an instinctive reality a generation from now? I think that’s about the best you can hope for. And if you do think we should use the “Ze” word, the way to go about it is not through seeking consensus. The thing to do is just start using it! That’s how language evolves. People throw it up and it sticks or it doesn't.

5. With regards to the plural confusion which currently badgers me; the use of they, them and their: I suggest that such a tricky migration might be significantly smoothed if we take an extra step by habitually changing the plural use of those words to - I don’t know - “they all” or “them all” or something like that.

I hope I am not misconstrued. I care about your feelings and I would like to try to help you feel comfortable with your body and your role within society and (gratefully) within my life. But we have to keep it real. The evolution of language naturally seeks clarity and thus changes with the times. The evolution of language does not seek confusion.

Suffering

Started the day revisiting Grandpa Munster at the hospital where he landed after a dizzy spell took his legs out from under him while having a pee, and his noggin collided with the porcelain toilet. Both beast and fixture survived the affair but the docs who patched him up took the opportunity to mention that he has pneumonia in one lung (as usual; he’s on antibiotics reliably two weeks out of every eight) and that he has acute kidney damage due to chronic dehydration but which is not irreparable.

“That’s what happens when you drink nothing but coffee for forty years,” I interjected (as I’ve warned him many times). Now that men and women in white coats are telling him likewise he seems to be starting to listen.

At noon I split for Sick Boy’s Game Den & Crazy Making Eyrie which he shares with an alcoholic hoarding terminally ill-ish mom (to their mutual simultaneous salvation and demise) where he managed to slip rather gracefully into the Miracle Saturn (which has eaten up $3000 in recent repairs to the wheel areas alone – at a time when my employment has been spotty at best) despite the crutches and the ghastly hole in his foot which somehow came about during an attempt to infiltrate an area of the eyrie sealed behind a thoroughly hoardified corridor.

En route to the medical centre we stopped at the bank to have his virtual monthly income cheque negotiated for conversion to much-needed food, rent and utility funds only to discover that the funds had been “previously negotiated.”

I’m not even sure what that means but apparently this is the result of some mistake (whether honest or malicious) and can only be rectified by a certain Disability Worker who is high on Sick Boy’s roster of personal nemesisses. Nemesai?  Nemeses? Ah! Nemeses! Like crisis pluralizes to crises! Thank you Spell Checker. Um… and apparently the evil disability worker will not be available for a week and thus there will be no food, no rent, no hydro payment to a hydro company which has run out of patience, and thus soon no hydro, but instead there will be hunger, a condemned apartment and swift eviction.

I’m not criticizing. I’m not judging; just observing. It seems like every problem in his life becomes an immediate foreboding of cascading problems with no break in the chain for possible solutions. I wish I had money to loan. I gave a modest donation instead.

It’s difficult to hear his roster of troubles on a regular basis. There is always a rebuttal to every suggested solution and always barriers put up - and awkward conditions attached - to any help you offer, which makes the help you intended become harder to give, and potentially laden with regret.

This is what mental illness – in this particular case – does. It throws a monkey wrench into goddam everything. Whatever the official combination of illnesses, conditions, syndromes etcetera are at play here: it should be summed up as Goddam Monkey Wrench Disease.

But I always wonder how much of this is necessary, and how much of it is optional: brought on by ineffective coping strategies perhaps, or failed adherence to them, or simply failed understandings stemming from the gap between psychological theory and physical facts. I have long been suspicious of our social presumptions concerning which mental machinations are healthy, or even  “sane” and which are not. I’m convinced in fact, that we are rather misguided in general, choosing the mental tendencies which are common and labeling them sane and healthy, only because they are normal. When in fact, normalcy may be the most fucked up disease there is, and very much at the core of the state of our social, economic and industrial world: a world in tragedy that is immensely – and probably now irreparably – fucked up despite all the thin surface comforts we all so blissfully and arrogantly take for granted, blind to the malignant grotesqueries which provide this veil.

Earth Writer said to me the other day, over coffee, that she was rethinking the nature of our attitude toward mental illness and starting to see it – in general – more as variation than illness. I applaud this thinking very much. How much of Sick Boy’s difficulties are a matter of mental dysfunction rather than just being different; her own preferences, fears and idiosyncrasies at odds with the structures we have built which serve the preferences of the normal . That would be a valuable and challenging experiment to dabble in.

Come evening, after struggling to stay awake all day, I hit the Six Minute Show where storytellers told their brief memoirs on the theme: Nevertheless She Persisted. My dear friend, who has insisted on remaining nameless for now, did muster the courage to participate.

I’m sure she wowed the audience from the start, beginning the brief tale with rich imagery and texture of the setting, informing us that we had a real writer on our hands! And then quickly but eloquently pouring an immense story from early childhood to present, into this confined space, so artfully, and sparingly choosing resonant little details from which we interpreted clearly: parental death, prolonged abuse, regular examination of suicide, but finally, perhaps just in time: The partner who is her “heart” and the son who is her “soul” and the “warrior woman” whose wise words also helped her to finally see value in her own existence. I knew the warrior woman in her final years; very well in some aspects, though I did not know her back in her heroic years, before she diminished somewhat and sought her own hero, and I yearn to hear those stories. I fought hard to hold back tears through all of this and even at her generous mention of dear friendship, with a nod toward me.

Her message in the end was one about joy and celebration: an attempt to re-gift the warrior woman’s good words to those in the audience who needed them; for the event was a fundraiser (as all the Six Minute Club’s events are, I believe) to, on this night, a group called SACHA which helps victims of abuse.

As the actual nature of the event had finally dawned on me early on, I asked my pals: “Am I going to feel terrible about being a man by the end of the night?”

“Nope,” was my friend’s reply. “You’re going to feel good about being a good man.”

Touche!

There were many other almost-as-great storytellers that night. I’d love to say more about their charming and diverse offerings but this post grows long. I will pass this fine moment along though, from the woman who spoke with delightful humour of her struggles with men and with the law and with her own mind, who concluded with a conspiratorial smirk and said: “I don’t suffer from mental illness...”

“ I’m enjoying it.”

Peace out, folks.

FWG