dantallion’s can[n]on

I’m making a series of rather major changes to my little corner of the universe of late.

Among them is my decision to sell my home. So I put it on the market a couple of weeks ago, and it sold the day before last.

I have 20 days to vacate the premises. I have not found another place to live yet, so I’ve absolutely no idea where I’m moving to. I have a very large condo worth of stuff to pack up, sort out, and/or throw away. Changes of address (which can’t be done until I actually have an address to give that I’m changing to…). Cancellation of services. Etc.

Oh, and it’s not like I had a lot of spare time to begin with.

And still, I feel exhilarated by the upheaval, uncertainty, and pressure.

Isn’t it strange, the things we do to ourselves in the name of making changes?

As I’ve said before, I have a tendency to retreat within myself and get stuck in my head when things get to be a little too much. I become singularly focused on pulling myself out of whatever situation(s) or circumstance(s) are at the root of the problem – usually to the exclusion of all else. I feel an overwhelming need to fix things myself. It’s gotten me into trouble with people on a number of occasions in the past, because I tend to get incredibly reclusive and anti-social, and generally shut people out completely. I do so until such time that all my energy no longer needs to be focused on the task at hand.

It’s not a quality that I’m particularly proud of, but it’s the damage-control mode that my head seems to automatically take me to if things get unusually unmanageable, whether I like it or not. If I were Windows™, I guess this would be my “Safe Mode”, limiting the programs running in my universe.

All of that being said, the last couple of months have been a little less than kind - both for reasons that I’ve talked about here, as well as for others that I have not. I look back at the sporadic posts I’ve actually made here, and it all reads as whiny to me. And the fact is that while I start the process of regrouping, I am completely uninspired as far as having anything to post goes.

In other words, my heart’s just not in it right now, as I focus on other things.

So I’m going to take a little break from everything non-essential – including Blogdom. Could be a few days, could be a little longer. Just until I can settle a few things and get back on track.

Cheers!

Still here. Still coughing incessantly. Still trying to play catch-up in real life, although not particularly effectively.

I’ll tell you; this has been a remarkably long and frustrating experience.

In any event, here’s an update: D and I are still- and will remain- broken-up. Aside from his kind of clumsy attempt at trying to contact me via his Mom a couple of weeks after the fact, there has been no direct communication between us since his email. I won’t be trying to contact him.

Far more upsetting for me is A. Up until the day of the blow-up with D, A and I were pretty much inseparable – freakishly close would be a better way of putting it. We spoke (well, laughed, actually) on the phone without fail several times a day. We spent all of our free time together, and we had made some pretty serious long term plans for future projects together. He was my best friend – and I’m really not the type of guy that HAS a best friend. He would often tell me that he’d never had a friendship like mine, nor was there anyone in his world that he’d ever trusted as much. I felt very much the same way. We became family to one another.

All of it came to a crashing halt the day of the blow-up with D. I’ve made some attempts to speak with him since, with no success.

None of it makes sense to me. Aside from the dislike of D, everything was fine up until that point. There has to be something more to all of this that I’m unaware of, because this sudden shift has no reasonable or rational explanation that I can fathom.

For the record, before anyone suggests that perhaps A is gay, and that this was a jealousy thing, let me assure you that he is absolutely, unequivocally as straight as they come.

I have to admit that this has been harder on me than any break-up.

Beyond that, I’ve got nuthin’. Everything in my world is about trying to catch up on things (including some emails from friends here in Blogdom – I will get to that). I’m tired and grumpy and sad, and way beyond frustrated with this cough that refuses to ease up.

And I apologize for this less-than-cheery post. Simply put, it is what it is.

I know posting has been a little thin around here lately. I’ve been under the weather and I’m just starting to get back on track. I have a whack of catching up to do - both in Blogdom and, more pressingly, in real life. Regularly scheduled programming should resume in the next few days or so.

Cheers,

It’s been 23 days since I caught whatever it was that I caught that eventually morphed into bronchitis. I’m still coughing non-stop. I’m exhausted like I’ve never been before. I don’t remember getting clobbered by illness like this - ever. As it stands, I’ve been making it into work for a few hours each day before the coughing becomes too much and I’m forced to go back to bed. Anyone who doubts that these bugs are getting more, well, virulent with each passing year is fooling themselves.

Neither D nor A have tried to contact me since a week ago last Saturday. Nor have I made any further attempts to communicate with either of them.

Go figure.

At this point, it’s just as well that I’m hunkered down in bed. I’m in a crappy mood, and a metaphorical crawl under a rock is about all I have any interest in doing right now.

So I finally went to the doctor on Friday. He thinks it’s a nasty case of bronchitis, arranged an x-ray at the hospital, and prescribed pills and a pump. I think I’m a bit better today, although I still feel like I’ve been run over by a truck, and the cough is being remarkably stubborn – particularly when I try to speak. It’s been two weeks now - I honestly don’t ever remember getting knocked-out by illness like this before.

D broke up with me this past weekend. There was some intense dislike developing between him and my best friend “A” that I attributed to a little bit of ITJ - “Initial Territorial Jealousy”. Things were going brilliantly well between D and I, except for this one problem. I tried to fix it by making some plans around all three of us so that no one would feel left out or ignored, but that seemed to make things worse.

Apparently I underestimated just how much of a problem it was.

I had said to D that I really wasn’t up to seeing anyone when he had offered to come over on Saturday – which is typical of me when I’m really sick. This was already a bit of a sore point with him because I hadn’t seen him (or anyone else for that matter) for several days before that because I was pretty much out of commission. Later on Saturday afternoon, he called to check in on me at the same time that A had dropped by my place for a few minutes (completely unannounced) with homemade soup, juice and vitamins. When he realized that A was with me, he got uncharacteristically pissed. I explained that A had just dropped by for a few minutes to bring some “sick” supplies, and that I didn’t even know he was coming, but somehow he didn’t want to hear me. Meanwhile, A could hear that D was (once again) upset about him being around, and started to get annoyed himself. His annoyance boiled over when he heard me trying to placate D on the phone because he was there. He muttered something - I’m sure I heard the word “fuck” in there - and left before my conversation with D ended.

A couple of hours later, D sent me a curt email saying that he wasn’t going to compete for attention, and that he was done.

And that was the end of it.

To top it all off, since A left my place on Saturday, I’ve left him two messages to give me a call – both have which have gone unanswered – which is completely unlike him.

The irony here, of course, is that neither of them is aware that the other has shut me out over all this. And to be honest, I’m not sure I feel particularly inclined to inform either of them of that fact at the moment.

And now I have to go. I got caught passing a note in math class, and my teacher is making me stay after school.

(I’m going back to bed.)

A week ago last Sunday, I got a bit of a tickle in my throat. As the week progressed, my energy level fell through the floor. By Thursday, I had knives in my throat and an elephant sitting on my chest. And by Friday morning I was running a temperature of 102F.

It’s now Wednesday, and I’m still not shaking this off. I’ve never considered breathing a luxury before.

Whatever this is, it’s packing one hell of a whallop.

All of this whining is my long-winded way of saying that posting will be little-to-none until I’m no longer seeing large, multi-coloured, fuzzy animals flying through the air around me (which, truth be told, is not an altogether unpleasant feeling).

Apparently, I’m not who I thought I was.

I must say, I feel emboldened. I feel empowered. I feel like I might leap a tall building in a single bound.

Apparently, I have super powers.

Or more appropriately, Suuuuper-powers. (**add a lisp and some jazz-hands when you read that**)

Last month, it was revealed that a recent earthquake that was felt across Israel was the result of the “homosexual activity practiced in the country”, according to elected official and Ultra-Orthodox Jew Shlomo Benizri. (Leading us to the obvious conclusion that Shlomo’s no Homo).

I have been told on occasion that “the earth moved” afterwards(*ahem*), however I’m beginning to think that I shouldn’t have been flattered so much as concerned with reigning in the apparently devastating effect of my libido.

This month we learn that we have the ability to destroy the United States of America, and that homosexuals pose “a bigger threat to the U.S. than terrorism or Islam”, according to Rep. Sally Kern of Oklahoma City.

Oh, and we also get to corrupt elementary school children. Bonus!

Boy is MY face red. All this time, I’ve been minding my own business, trying to lead a good and decent life as a productive member of society, when all the while I could have been destroying all those that disagree with or irritate me, armed simply with a Kylie Minogue CD, some steel-toed stilettos, and a fabulous little muscle-shirt!

(On a serious note here folks – you’ll notice that the ignorant bitch cited Islam – the religion – and not Islamic Extremists, as a threat to the US on par with terrorism. I heard all sorts of backlash about her reference to gays being a threat, but not one word of backlash about her reference to Islam. I understand that this is a hot-button issue for the gay community. I also understand the importance of speaking out against homophobia. But it irritates the crap out of me to see her get away with a statement like that against an entire religion with hardly a word of protest from those whose interests lie in eliminating such ignorance - which is ALL of us, by the way. A word to the gays (AND the media in general): It’s all well and nice to speak out against such attacks, but your outrage would be a hell of a lot more credible if you’d speak out against ALL such ignorant, bigoted opinion, not just the part that offends you directly. Especially given that the Islamic population worldwide is estimated to be 1.1 to 1.8 BILLION people, or 16% to 27% of the world’s population.)

Anyway.

To think I had just recently been considering NOT renewing my membership card.

Suddenly, we’re becoming all-powerful. The world is now ours to do with as we please. We can finally impose our agenda on the unsuspecting public!

I just KNEW that there was an upside to being “corrupted” into my “chosen lifestyle” when I was in elementary school (as I apparently must have been).

Membership really DOES have its privileges. (Like 30% off at Abercrombie & Fitch – even on sale prices! Score!)

Now pass me a Mojito.

(Fucking morons.)

So I met “the Mom” last night.

It was inevitable for the simple reason that D lives with her. Now, I was pretty reluctant about it, but seeing as it was really important to him that we meet, I finally gave in and went over for dinner last night.

It was a surreal experience.

First things first. She is an amazing lady - intelligent, well-spoken, light-hearted and unbelievably warm. From the second I walked through the door, she was incredibly welcoming - so much so that I was embarrassed at first because it felt like she was over-compensating. After a little while, it became clear that this was just her natural demeanour.

As it turns out, she’s also D’s closest friend. They don’t interact like any mother and son I’ve ever seen. It’s been just the two of them for over 11 years now. They talk with each other about everything. And the way they joke with each other - well let’s just say that I can’t ever have imagined myself being so open about such things with my parents.

He’d told me they were close. I simply hadn’t occurred to me how much like friendship their dynamic would be, and how very unlike parent-child.

She had D when she was relatively young - it turns out she’s only 8 years older than I am. As a result, we had a lot of points of reference in common, and a lot to talk (and laugh) about.

As pleasant as it sounds (and it really was), you have to understand that all of this only served to underscore my level of discomfort over the age difference - here I am talking and joking with my bf’s the guy I’m dating’s Mom as though we were old friends from childhood. For the most part, I kept it together pretty well, trying incredibly hard not to let my discomfort show. Because in the back of my mind, I kept obsessing over the proximity of our ages - hers and mine.

At one point during the evening, D left us alone for a period of time, some convoluted excuse about an important phone call he’d forgotten to make. (He later confirmed to me what I’d already guessed - that there was no phone call, that they’d arranged it intentionally.) She pulled me aside and told me that D had mentioned to her that I was struggling a bit with the age difference. She told me that there was nothing to worry about, particularly from her. She said that age was, for the most part, irrelevant and that being respectful and happy was far more important than anything else. She said that I make D happy, and that if he makes me happy, then we should just enjoy our time together.

And she told me that I seemed to be everything he’d told her about me and more, and that she was happy that I’d come into D’s life.

I’ve never been in the position of receiving someone’s blessing to date their child kid offspring before. (See what I did there?) I never imagined that if it ever did happen that it would be so blatantly direct. It knocked me off-center completely.

The rest of the evening was just as pleasant, the food was great (nary a cheeseburger in sight), and the company, well, it felt like I’d been parachuted- and unconditionally welcomed- into the middle of something really different. I still don’t know what to make of it all.

I think I really, really enjoyed it.

…by Perplexio

Here are the rules:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play

Still waiting for the other shoe…

I’m not tagging anyone. I learned my lesson the last time. But feel free to do it - and let me know if you do.