Well, it’s time again to ring in the New Year, and I’m just thankful to have an internet connection that consists of more than two bars.  I never would have thought that all the cliches were really correct after all these years: that it is really only the value of family and friends that matter, the value of having a home to return to and a place to feel warm and comfortable.

I suppose New Years will always be something of a hard time for me.  It has been the beginning of many ends for me.  Although, I suppose every beginning, is truly the start of some end, New Years has held a specific significance for relationships past.  I have began one significant relationship under the pretense of a brand new year, and just last year I made a jump across the ocean in an attempt to see if love could indeed straddle both hemispheres.  Undoubtedly, it couldn’t.  So to look back now, across a city that is still, may I remind you, still, covered in snow, I am a little forlorn.

I can’t help but think about last year, my bags half packed and my heart on a fragile limb waiting to be broken by the reality of moving from my precious Vancouver haven to the harsh summer sands of Western Australia.  It is always a funny reality, no matter how old we become, to look back a year and realize how young we were and how small we really are.

And, I suppose that is the essence of New Years for some of us.  I suppose that is why I become so depressed when this apparently momentous event rolls around.  I become so enthralled by the things that were happening at this time last year and all the things that I was supposed to accomplish, that I somehow miss out on all the celebrations.

Well not this year my friends.  I am haphazardly throwing myself into the thick of it.  I’m here for the ride and I’m in Vancouver to stay, for now at least.  So amongst all this New Years doubt about beginnings that are domed to end, is a knowing that things are on the up and up.  I’ve got a home that I love filled with an interconnected net of connections that are as complicated as fulfilling, and to top it all off, I’ve got 5 full bars of internet connection…

So, top that off Mutha Fuckers!

I suppose if we didn’t have momentous things happen to us then we wouldn’t have stories to tell.  I suppose if the snow didn’t come falling in such catastrophic cascades then I wouldn’t have been delayed for hours this Christmas, and I would have made my connecting flight in San Francisco on my way to Phoenix.  But, as this story alludes, all these catastrophes did occur and alas I am tardy to my Arizona counterparts.

So here I sit in San Francisco as the clock strikes midnight, thinking about all my past Christmas’ and the little ways that time changes a person year after year.

I’m reminded of years as a child sitting up night after night as the hallowed day approached, completely unburdened by all the expectations that went along with it.  In anticipation I would sit awake imagining all the glorious moments that awaited me in the days to come.  There would surely be presents to open, cousins to see, and chocolate to be had.  This was sure to be the year that I would impress upon everyone that I had grown out of those little weenie pyjamas.

And, every year I was sadly mistaken.

I’m reminded of years later, as a teenager, trying to escape what I deemed “family-induced-nicotine-withdrawal”.  Surrounded by non-smoking grandparents, aunts, parents, and cousins, I was forced to wait until every last one of them had hit the hay before sneaking out into the unforgiving and bitter Alberta night where I would have a little puff of a cigarette, sneak inside and go through it all again the next day.

I’m reminded of my time in the tropics, the years that I celebrated Christmas on the beaches of Mexico, or the islands of Thailand.  I’ll never forget the way that everything dire, stressful, and relentless about Christmas, melts away in the warm temperatures.  Screw the presents, the mistletoe, and the garland, and take a skinny dip.  It’s honey for the soul I tell you.

And, I’ll always be reminded of this.  The year that I spent Christmas all alone, in a hotel in San Francisco.  This will be the year the winds howled so loud outside the windows that the panes of glass shook.  This will  be the year that the light shining through trees threw shadows on the ceiling that looked more like the arms of a drug induced raver, than the branches of a tree being spun around by currents of air.  This will be the year that I danced with the shadows.  This will be the year that I crushed my finger in a heavy hotel door and the year my Christmas dinner consisted of a bag of pretzels and a bottle of wine.

This will be the year that the economy caught up with us all, and in time, so did the weather.  This will be the year that the snow completely covered us, from Victoria to Halifax, all of us, covered for just a moment.  And, wind aside, this will be the year that I looked outside my window in the very first minutes on Christmas morning, and knew, come wind, or hail, or snow, or whatever else 2008 was going to throw at me, eventually I’d get there. Somehow.

Sitting in the airport with my flight, shockingly, early, I’m amused to see that CBC amongst all the general winter mayhem throughout Canada, is still tracking Santa throughout the world.

Even more amusing, is that Santa is flying over the Middle East, where I’m sure they are welcoming him with open arms.

As Vancouverites surround themselves with blankets, family, and food, my poor little flight to San Franscisco surrounds itself with more and more cancellations.  Yet, still amongst all these foresaken flights mine blinks On Time on the computer screen in my bedroom.

Early to bed, I awoke early this morning to a bleak Vancouver landscape. Homes and streets layered like that appetizer your aunt brings to the Christmas feast every year.  Except, unlike your aunt’s dish, this layered treat has been dug into, stepped through, and has actually been enjoyed by the odd deranged individual.

So here I wait, for the cab that I fear may never come.  Here I sit repeatedly refreshing the departures page of the Vancouver International Airport’s website, just hoping that one way or another I will make it all the way to Phoenix before next Tuesday.

Maybe it’s the snow building up on it, but the burden the roof of this old house is carrying is comparable only to the weight that I have been carrying around with me all of these adult years.  I have been building  a nest of straight people around me for as long as I can remember, and only recently have I started to make my way out of it.

Perhaps it was coming out to my friends and family at such an early age, surely I was one of the first of my friends to do the deed.  Perhaps it was having accepting parents, who although objected to some of my teenage actions, were as open as could be expected in Alberta over a decade ago.  Or perhaps, it is strictly in my character to ensure that I come across to others exactly as the man that I see myself to be.  Only thing is, this man that I see myself to be is more accurately the man that I want to be.

It’s bizarre to me still, this whole gay life and everything that seems to come along with it.  I’ve never denied my sexuality to anyone, but I’ve always strove to be so undefined by it, that I’ve completely refused a community of like minded individuals.  I could get more into my frustration with gay culture and all the sparkles and rainbows that seem inherently attached to it, but for now, I’m going to look on the bright side.

So if superficiality is the dark side of the gay community for me, then what my friends is the bright side?

I suppose it’s a confidence that comes with showing your true colors, it’s the side of the rainbow that I’ve never seen before now.  I’ve begun to understand my own dark side, the side that’s kept me cooped up, pensively considering every action I’ve taken and the way in which the world may of viewed me for it.  I’ve become fearful of a world that already judges and expects something from me no matter what colors I wear.

So, don’t get me wrong all my straight comrades.  You’re are my world, always have and always will be.  And, be not offended all you gays that have stood by me through thick and thin, I am not martyring myself to a world where I walk a desert completely devoid of all homosexual life.  I am merely stating that there is always room for a person to take a look at the homes that their lives and built and see where there’s room for expansion.  Perhaps there is always a little more room behind a wall or two, and by simply grabbing a sledge hammer and taking it to the plaster, we can find a little more space.  A place where we can work on becoming the person we’ve always been and not just the masculine example of homosexuality that we never will be.

It’s pretty hard to imagine that at the same time as I’m arranging my new found thrift store treasures people are dealing with the body of a woman that was incidentally incinerated in a shopping cart.  I don’t feel like dabbling over the details or fussing with how it could have happened, what should have been done, the infrastructure that should have been in place to protect her, etc, etc.

With how caught up I am with everything in my life, it’s impossible to not sit and take notice to something that runs so contrary to everything that I consider a need.

I’ve been pandering to all of it:

• My frustration over money and everything that goes with it
• The Christmas presents I can or cannot buy
• How many times I make it to yoga
• The spots on my face
• How often I drink
• What I’m eating
• How gay I come off to others
• How commited I’m willing to become to others

This won’t be the last time that some frustrated youth, seeking deeper meaning to things, questions the thought that run through his head or how very lucky he is, but I’ll tell you this.  While standing in my kitchen re-arranging the things I just bought at the salvation army a woman covered the only home she’s known for some time, a shopping cart, with a tarp.  In an effort to stay warm this same woman lit a candle and burned to death because of it.

So what do we really need, to survive?

I’ve grown accustomed to waking to the sounds of ladybugs in my room. the way their wings sound and the tinking noises as they land in the light fixture hanging from the middle of the ceiling.

When Meghan and I moved here a year ago it was impossible to miss the multitude of ladybirds on the window sill of my room, climbing up the walls, or decaying slowly to dust in the corners of the room, crumbs of the previous tenants as their pillows.  Over this time here I’ve come to find these beetles in my bed, on my person, or even in the pockets of my swimming shorts at the pool.

Myth says many things about these little creatures and you’d be hard pressed to find someone that has distaste for the bug.  Some think that the number of spots of their backs can tell a great deal about the future, from the number of children one may have to the direction that one’s true love will approach them from.  Although I’ve always been a sap for myths and fiction I’m truly beginning to think that there is something supernatural about them indeed.

I’ve been waking in the middle of the night completely racked with fear.  Searching with groggy eyes around the darkness I can’t help but feel another’s presence in the room.  Am I going mad, or like those who have lived in this room before me, is there something haunted in this place?  Are there reasons beyond the south facing windows and the creaky floorboards drawing ladybugs into this place?  Are these creatures merely attracted to the warmth of this wintery hideaway or is there something beyond me that I cannot see?

I’m riddled with questions this morning, in search for the reasons why I might be waking in the night with a fear that is only comparable to my late nights in bed after watching Unsolved Mysteries as a child.

I’m riddled with questions this morning, because unlike other mornings, I can no longer hear the wings of the lady beetles, I can no longer hear the sounds that their shells make against the glass.

I am forced to ask myself whether it is the coolness of the season that has driven them away or the lack of love that fills these chilly walls.  I wonder if they, as some myths have said, can understand human language and have sensed my confusion over everything.

So perhaps, for a time, not only the ghosts in my room are the dearly departed.  Perhaps, in time the ladybugs will come again to haunt me too.

Meghan and I had our first Christmas miracle today.  After tromping around in the snow, that I don’t detest nearly as much as I’ve let on, we took a trip to Kingsgate Mall in search of rubber boots and soup.  The melted slushy puddles that I foolishly clomped through had sent the chilly water through the pores in my shoes and the two pairs of socks that I had pulled over my feet this morning.  My chilly toes left me grumpy and in need of some so-called Christmas cheer.

So, you ask, what’s this Christmas miracle that I speak of?  Well, if Kingsgate mall wasn’t a miracle enough, with its copious selection of fine consumer goods and the decrepit street car out front in all its glory, there is more to this miracle than just the jam-packed goodness of the mall itself.

After wandering the halls of Shopper’s Drug Mart, all starry-eyed, the unnecessary cosmetics calling us to spend our hard-earned dollars, Meghan and I checked out with shaving creme, soup, and Melba toast.  What could be better, I thought to myself, than delicious soup, dehydrated mini-bread, and a good shave?  Well free bread, of course.

After leaving the store and only a block away from our chilly wooden house, I decided to take a look at the receipt from Shopper’s to see how many of those silly points I’d acquired.  And guess what? the poor sap had forgotten to scan our box of Melba toast.  That’s right, a Christmas miracle indeed, food for the needy.  In this time of economic collapse, and dire circumstance, the kindness of Shopper’s, providing me with my mini-toast, has brought a little warm fire to my heart.

You know, Christmas miracles make Melba toast taste even better than usual.

Alley | Vancouver

Sometimes it’s all that we can do to try and avoid an unavoidable situation.  In essence it’s impossible.  It doesn’t matter the pace we take as we are racing towards a wall or our ability to turn quickly, something that is unavoidable is exactly that.

No matter what the signs say along the way, we plunge in, and sometimes it feels like we’re drowning.  Everything feels so similar, and yet, so nearly unique.  We become accustomed to our worlds, the places that we create by just being alive.  We can cause them all to crumble by speaking a couple of words, and often we do just that.

We are intricately tied to this delicate place, and it is impossible to avoid the unavoidable, and though each of us has come to know this, it doesn’t make the unavoidable any more easy to avoid, and it doesn’t make a crash hurt any less than it does.

oops,

crash…

Malaysian Escalator Sign

When researching this little article a friend of mine told me that if I need to walk up escalators then I should clearly just get out of bed five minutes earlier every morning.  This is the same friend that I spent 6 months traveling through Asia with and the same friend that made sure to let me know that it drove her crazy when I would walk up escalators.

As far as pet peeves go, standing still on escalators ranks near the top.  It is a behavior rampant in our society and clearly draws a line between two unique groups of people: people who have places to be and things to do and people who are clearly just trying to drive me crazy.  There are locations throughout Vancouver where these two groups can co-exist in peace, namely the SkyTrain stations where it is clearly labeled that standees take the right and walkers take the left.  But this leaves a city of uncontrolled escalators ready and waiting for some lazy guy or gal to come a long and prevent me from reaping the benefits of this mode of travel.

Malaysian Escalator Sign

Granted, there are those that would argue that an escalator presents a moment to chill out and relax, to take a second to repose and rest.  But unlike all you masters of zen, some of us common folk have a schedule to keep and don’t have the privilege of such an aimless squandering of time.  To those of you that are less mobile than I am in my young age, I completely approve of your behavior, but these are not the folk that I see most often blocking my path.  It can be anyone anywhere, perhaps you are carrying a couple of bags and decide that it’s alright to hold them at your side in my path, perhaps you are talking on your cell phone, or perhaps you have a friend with you and the two of you decide that is necessary to stand on the same step and make it completely impossible for anyone to overtake you.

I found an interesting article on Slate.com that looked at this dilemma from an economic perspective .  At discovering this discussion I began to realize that this problem is in fact bigger than me and you and consequently sheds light on a much broader societal issue.  Whether we walk or stand still on escalators, we are claiming our right to behave as we choose in an un-controlled environment.  It is often in these un-controlled environments, when humans are cooped up together in intimate environments, that some of our most interesting behaviors become apparent to each other.  Buses, elevators, and line-ups are all situations where we’ve been faced with dealing with the words, smells, and raucous attitudes of others.  It is what we do with other’s behaviors that defines us as individuals, and we hope for the benefit of humanity itself that it doesn’t turn out violent as this incident on a San Francisco escalator did.

So, if this little commentary accomplishes anything I suppose I would just like a little more consideration from those of you who I’m unlucky enough to have to share an escalator, elevator, or city bus with.  I guess all I’m asking from you, is to open your eyes, take a look around, and be aware of the individuals that are standing directly behind, because unlike yourselves, some of us are too jacked up on anxiety and coffee to take ten seconds to just chill out.