Yeah, that's right, the swine flu's cute little curly tail can shoot waves of fire out of it.... BEWARE!!!

So for some inane reason, Matty and I decided to set up the television once again.

And yes, we are now stuck in front of it as the sun shines outside and as children are laughing and playing in the street, we are cowering on our couch experiencing the dire consequences and terrific trauma that await us with the oncoming swine flu.

To tell you the truth, I’m not even sure if I would have heard about this so-called “swine flu” if I hadn’t turned on the news this afternoon.

In its so typical way, the news once again is instilling fear and paranoia in the minds of the masses.

Apparently pandemics come in waves, and we are experiencing the first wave of this one.  The stern faced anchor on the television so graciously tells us that the third wave of the swine flu should be coming to Vancouver just in time for the 2010 olympics.

Maybe I’ll look back at this a couple years down the road when the swine flu has fully thinned the masses, and the world has become a realistic portrayal of Outbreak or Resident Evil. But for Christ’s sake, does everything on the news have to be so God-damned exaggerated and thematic??

Me thinks it’s time to put the television back in the closet where it belongs.

These beautiful creations of nature in Borneo actually smelled like rotting flesh. Go Figure.

I’ve noticed that I’ve started to chew my fingernails again.  I can trace the reoccurance of this habit to the beginning of Spring perhaps, or the night that I saw you in the v-neck.  Most likely it was the events that followed that night: the building of stress, the depletion of my bank account, the exams, the accident, and the death of a long-lost friend.  All culminating in the complete destruction of my fingernails and cuticles.

And although we are both still waiting for the eventual injection into our bank accounts, we’ve decided to set up our television to pass the time.

I returned from Salt Spring today on a high.  The elimination of an internet connection or the means to make a phone call was a more than well needed adventure.  For more than 24 hours, my mind actually wandered to things that are actually important.  My health, my future, the state of the here-and-now all came to the forefront of my mind, and I was at once removed from all the petty fretting that I have been doing lately.  I was at once complete from all the incompleteness.

I love the city, the cars, the sirens, the light, the adventure, but never have I needed so badly to remove myself from it.

When do we slip into unhealthy patterns?  When does our mind begin to dwell on the things that it shouldn’t.  When is it that we finally realize that we need to escape from it all?

I’ve pissed someone off.

And old friend.

My writing, my stereotypes, my bitter criticism.

And I’ve been forced to question my voice.  Granted I’ve pissed others off before, old co-workers, a bartender or two, and many a homo.  But never have I been patronized so maternally by a friend.

I have a voice.  And I never made any presumptions that it was profound or meaningful.  I’ve never even assumed that it was in any way funny.  The only laughter that I get on a regular basis is usually at the expense of my clutsyness, or perhaps my studdering mind.  I also never made any presumptions that my voice was particularly crude or offensive.  But beyond these non-existant presumptions, have been the reactions that have surfaced because of my voice.  Thus far, in the few months that I have been writing this simple simple simple little blog, I have managed to offend, touch, and amuse a variety of folks.

So should I care that a long lost friend in some way thinks that my simple thoughts and judgements are somehow offensive?  Hell no, there’s not a reaction available that will shape and form this confused and simple voice of mine.  Though I may be impressionable, I will never let another being tell me something isn’t funny, when it is clearly causing those around me to be amused.

So I read too much vice magazine, and surround myself with those that may see the world a little rougher around the edges than you do.  Good on you for living in a world where political correctness reigns, and we can all keep our dark thoughts to ourselves.

Good on you for floating around on a golden chariot made of gosh-darn-good feelings, filled to the brim with rainbows and cinnamon buns.

Good on you for living in a world that’s just so unified and beautiful that no one says anything about anyone, and we all just live together in perfect harmony.

Good for you for seeing the world a lot different than I do.

But I’m afraid this voice of mine hasn’t quite learned how to speak in the tone of optimistic-happy-unicorn-sunshine-rainbow-dance quite yet.

Hmmph.  Maybe someday.

I’ve been thinking a lot about beginnings and endings. Sparks set off that lead to something incredible and the eventual downfall. The start of the day and the end of the evening. Cycles and repetitions that all inevitably lead us forward, and in turn leave us standing in the same spot.

With my 27th birthday right around the corner, I once again am taking an exhaustive look at my life, something I do every time April rolls around. Some years it leads to deep dark depressions, and other years it leads to hopelessness. But every year it has me asking myself, “how could someone who has accomplished so much, and who has everything that he needs, be so incredibly nit-picky about the things that he hasn’t done?” And I can attempt to convince myself about my benchmarks, and the love in my life, but it is the things that are lacking that seem to win the battle.

So, this year, I’m considering myself lucky. Sure I’ve had my regular ups and downs, but no pit of despair just yet. Perhaps it’s the numerology of my 27th year, or just the fact that things are generally progressing in a natural and healthy manner. Granted it’s a constant battle, I want so badly to lay my life out on the table and pick apart my bad habits, my failed stories and poems, my brutal attempts at finding love, and my overwhelming issues with image, but it aint going to happen. This year, I’m taking it head on and telling all those sneaking suspicions, constant cravings, and mediocre moans that they can shove it in their cunty-balls.

Watching anti-gay ads on the internet has become an obsession of mine.  Finally, I understand the fascination with twisted car-wrecks and fist fights.  Apparently some hormone is released in me when I see how truly fucked up people are.  Morbid as it is, it makes me feel good.

How Fucked is that?  Am I alone in this?

Perhaps watching the United States battle over something that seems like such old news, just confirms the primitive nature of their politics and culture to me.  Perhaps, being raised for a time in the US, I get some sick pleasure from knowing that I am happily, a Canadian citizen.  I can’t quite put my finger on it, but time and time again, here I am browsing anti-gay websites, feeding their egos with my presence on their soil.

So I sit here in bed this morning, watching the newest disastrous monstrosity to grace my screen. While other gay men are cuddling in bed with each other, or taking advantage of another beautiful day, I’m sitting here watching the storm clouds come rolling in.

Naively in my dwindling hope, that marriage, for me, might someday actually be a possibility, I try so hard to believe that I’ll figure out how to love someone again.  Naively, I pretend that the pursuit of love these past years has been a breeze, and that I’ve actually enjoyed it.  Sure, there’s been moments, but I’ll admit that dating has just become more difficult and confusing the older that I’ve got.

But at least for me there’s the reality of union.  What it means to me I don’t know.  The idea of marriage to me seems outdated and superfluous.  The only idea of marriage that seems even slightly appealing is the potential for a good party (you see where my priorities are).  But at least it’s a reality.

So good luck to all you homos in the States.  And watch out for the storm clouds, and that terrible unkempt portrayal of a lesbian in the following commercial.

Can you seriously believe that the National Organization for Marriage has the audacity to call themselves a rainbow coalition?

And again, what is with the lesbian?  And what is she talking about?  Does the National Organization for Marriage really believe that they are going to win over the general public by convincing them that there are gay people out there that feel their rights and freedoms are in fact being altered negatively by an expanded set of rights?

Dear god, are there?

Anyways, while watching my acceptable daily dose of mutilated victims, I stumbled across a much healthier form of YouTube perversion.  For some reason YouTube had decided that the following video was somehow related to all the hate propaganda of an undereducated and confused nation that I’d been watching all morning.

Perhaps it is YouTube’s way of telling me that I shold be looking on the lighter side.

I keep writing the same way.

But apparently tweeting will destroy our minds before we manage to destroy them ourselves.

If we ever thought that the end of ourselves would be the downfall of technology, be assured that there is still hope for biological self-destruction.

Day after day, the simple joy of analytics, seo, and backlinks keep us helplessly distracted, but be aware.

We are all completely capable of taking ourselves down from the inside.

It can become so easy to look out on a broken city, or the failed attempt to do something that you deem important.  Too often it consumes me, the things I don’t do, my staggered and interrupted progress, or my constant procrastination.  It can become so easy to flounder and forget what really is important.

I’m left shaking my head this afternoon.

I place my fingers on either side of the ridge at the top of my nose and I squeeze.  Taking my fingers over my brows, I open up my closed eyes.

It’s been a hard week.

Only last night I was shaking my head at my failed attempts to memorize pointless figures and didgets, and today the triviality of life comes crashing in.

How silly I’ve been.

I’ve been so consumed by the things that I thought were stressing me out, that bad news comes heavier than expected.

I’d all but forgotten you, let you slip from my mind.  Though you graced my thoughts from time to time, it was always something fleeting.  You could be so brash, so loud, so abrupt… so caring, and patient, and kind, but I’m afraid I never knew the man that you’d become.

I’m afraid I didn’t know the “new” you.

I’m afraid I’ve broken so many hearts, that I don’t even know how hard I broke yours, or if I did at all.

It was a long time ago, that hot summer in Calgary and the picnic table in your back yard.  The mattress in your basement and the room upstairs.  The scabies and the others.  The piercings and the parties.  The bike ride up the hill and the grilled cheese sandwiches at the Harley Diner.

The first of something.

And you were a first in more ways than one, and perhaps that’s the part that leaves me feeling confused and cloudy right now.

Because nothing is as timeless or memorable as the first of something.

Facebook has come to connect and define us, but the remainder of it, even after we’re gone is a unique dilemma.  To not be defined by the things that we’ve done, and the memories that we leave behind, and rather to be remembered for our last profile pic, a silly wall post, or our very last actions, leaves me uneasy and empty inside.

The choices we make in those last days, those last moments, can have a tendency to remain with us forever.  I chose right now to remember the firsts of things, because they always make for better memories.

We are all eternally growing older amogst an ever expanding and shrinking group of connections.

Goodbye, old friend.

After a sudden, if not overly embarrassing moment on my bicycle this afternoon, I not only realized something about keeping my bike in tip-top shape, but also something about the oncoming season.

We are all awaiting summer as anxiously as we await our student loans;  all of us sitting in our homes, waiting for the next sunny day to give us an excuse to tow ciders down to the park, or ride our bikes to the sea.

Hasty-mart tonight has its doors wide open, and the weather isn’t even all that warm.

I discovered a little musical whimsy on my usual escape from school books this evening, that I must share with the world.

As quickly as the changing season is upon us, so too are the anthems that will keep our feet fueled on all of our inevitable late night dance-a-thons.

I see Bangkok through your eyes, and I wonder what’s happened in these two years since I’ve returned. I miss the way the streets smelled. Some called it rotting, and I am forced to ask myself what smells we assume ourselves to have. Perhaps, all of us here have found a place to live that’s so cold, all of our smells drop off of us in little ice cycles; hitting the ground and smashing to bits.

I see the rivers through your eyes, and the sweat on your foreheads and I wonder if you know how very lucky you are. Do you take it all in, every breath of every mile upon that river? The little boats that carry you from island to island, do you wonder about their ability to go? It took me ages just to let go, to let the spray hit my face. How your billions of citizens will assume to presume that they will make it across the water to grab their wares and take them back again. To see those waves and to somehow make a dollar to feed each other is still a mystery to me.

I am forced to wonder how you think, and how you feel. Because I am jumping to broad, ridiculous conclusions about the whole of everything.

I am something else.

The First Kurt Vonnegut book that I read was Slaughterhouse-Five, and though the details of it are still a little sketchy in my mind, the book, like the author shaped the way I look at fiction.  When I read that 14 never-published stories of his would be released later this year, I’ll have to admit, my mind took a moment to catch up to my racing heart.

I would be hard-pressed to scramble through my favorite authors and even manage a top five list, but as an angst-ridden teenager, Kurt Vonengut’s dark-satirical humour always brought a smile to my face.  The man taught me that art doesn’t always have to come in prim and proper little packages, and that perhaps, the world isn’t as nicely ordered as some would tell you.

For someone like myself, who has exhausted his works, I’m beaming at the thought of getting to experience a little more of his writing.

To the fellow with the always present cigarette in tow, I miss ya.

Along with the release of  Look at the Birdie in the fall, watch for the republishing of many of Vonnegut’s works.

That’s right, I’ve actually started following Spencer Pratt on Twitter.  What started as a way of keeping in touch with nerds like myself, has now transmuted itself into something not-so-entirely scary, but perhaps a little frightening none the less.

It’s incredible to watch the evolution of social networking.  A fascinating concept that has already been beaten into the ground with millions of blogs, articles, and news features, but none-the-less,I’m intrigued by my own utilization of the whole experience.

Our conversations keep getting shorter, and I’m not surprised that my attention span keeps shrinking at precisely the same rate as social networking limits the number of characters that I can use to express myself.

I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t excited about the evolution of everything.  I love change, dynamic and exciting re-construction of everything that we know to be true.  And it amuses me to watch those out there that are still naive about the ubiquity of the internet.  I choose to sit back and let them relax for the moment, watch the world pass by without them, and I do envy them, if only slightly.  I remember my angst-filled years as a teenager, fighting against change, conversion, and construction.  But this man I am now is only a slight approximation of the boy that I was.  I’m still passionate, but it was just as my mother told me: “Trevor, one day you will settle down.”  And though there is little evidence of this gradual escape from extreme in my belly–my spare tire has yet to be seen– my mother was entirely correct.

I completely embrace progress.  I embrace the gritty-nasty structure of the mass media, the abuse of Spencer Pratt and all of his minions.  I feed off the tweets, and the buzzing of my cell-phone, and all the while my brain keeps moving faster and faster, in time with my quickening heartbeat.

It’s a scary proposition for my body.  The same body that, like my mother keeps telling me to “just settle down.”