So the tide has certainly turned, and all those months in Winter when I never thought the sun would show itself, are all certainly behind us.

A couple of weeks ago I lost my moleskine.

From January 2009 all the way until December 09, was this little black notebook supposed to keep me timely.  This moleskin and I made a deal that I would scribble all the commitments, ideas, and oddities of my mind for one whole year, give or take a day or two, and now we have been forever divorced.

I can’t recall the location in which I left the silly thing.  Perhaps I left it cold and alone in the bookstore, a classroom, or at a lonely bus stop bench, but unknownst to me was the value that I had placed in the silly thing.

For those of you who don’t know the love that develops between a person and a molekine, I must press that it is surely time to discover such a relationship.  My home is cluttered with the things, from journals on my bedside table, a phone registry in the kitchen, and a journalist’s pad always at the ready in my bag.

I had always played with the scenario of the sad day that would result from the loss of one of my moleskines.  Now, unfortunately, these day dreams have turned into the accurate representation of my now cluttered, disorganized life.

I really had no idea of the dependence that I had on the silly book to keep my schedule in tact, keep my assignments in my instructors hands on time, and keep my ever expanding library of ideas on paper.  I only wonder what value such a mess would be to someone who found the thing.  And with my email, phone number, address all neatly printed on the inside cover, I wonder 2 weeks later why I haven’t heard a word about its journey from my hands to someone else’s.

Is it really plausible that someone found such interest in my appointments and doodles, that they felt the need to keep it for themselves?  Or, perhaps they found the bundle of promotional material for Vancouver’s Gay Top Model so deterring that they didn’t want to meet the homo who’s property this was.

I suppose the best case scenario that I can think of is that some poor student who had always wished to have a molekine of their very own, adopted it for themselves, and just conceded to the fact that they would have to take on 4 months of my identity in order to have one of their very own.

Or, perhaps, some asshole just chucked the thing in the nearest bin, and my life as I knew it has been buried in a pile of trash and rubble for the last week; my moleskine slowly but surely alleviating itself of any more of our undying commitment to each other.

*sigh*

So for some reason when I registered for classes this semester, I thought it would be a brilliant idea to take a night class, along with my already full morning schedule.  So even after leaving campus to have a 2 hour lunch with a friend, and studying my ass off in the library for a couple of hours, I still have time to sit around for an hour in this over-heated dilapidated campus.

Shit dude!

How easily it slips.  How easily I’m able to wait, and in waiting,  it simply turns into more waiting.

I’m used to the power, I’m used to holding all the cards, and I’m easily upset by early nights and the cold, lonely home that we keep.

I don’t know anymore, how to just sit, and see what the world will bring me.

I can watch the clock like the rest of you.  But I struggle to take my eyes off of it, for even a moment.

Credit: mikebaird on flickr

So it has become more than evident over the past 10 years of adult hood and further into my childhood, that I, yes me, am completely off my rocker.  But aren’t we all?  Isn’t each and every one of us even just a little out of balance?  Or is this one of the fibs that I tell myself to condone my ever rocking mind?  The membranes that move between sanity, and chaos, and balance, and back again.

I’ve grown accustomed to this movement between one place and another.  I’ve grown used to the fluctuations in creativity that come with it, the passion, and the depression.  I’ve become completely stable and comfortable never, ever knowing how I will feel in the morning.  Perhaps it is this movement back and forth that drives me to act.  Perhaps it is this movement that keeps me right here, completely and utterly unsatisfied and all the while hopeful and full of joy.

Perhaps, I am hopelessly stuck being way too overly sensitive.

I’m just lucky that once in a while I–with or without the backhanded sense of another– can come to terms with my rickety old ship of a mind, and finally coax it still again.

Yep, that seems just about right.

I became inspired recently by an article on Homorazzi called That’s So Gay.

I couldn’t help but think about a friend of mine, who has been known at times to let those same words slip from her mouth.  I’ll tell you first off that I am part of a group of amazing folks who each, in their own way represents a totally unique and distinct part of the spectrum that makes up Vancouver.  But as diverse as they are, political correctness is not their strongest character.  In fact most of us tend to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in communication on a daily basis.

It has at times, gotten us into a little trouble.

I suppose that’s part of the reason why I let it slide off my back when I hear things like “that’s so gay!”

Part of the reason.  And the other part?

Perhaps it really doesn’t bother me.  The little things that we all say on a daily basis have lost so much of their meaning to me… to all of us, that what does it really matter?  And I understand the disgust, I really do.  I know that derogatory words and attitudes do nothing to advance any of us.  And, they absolutely have the potential to re-enforce attitudes and behaviours towards others.  I suppose, I just get so sick of having to watch every little thing that comes out of my mouth that I don’t expect others to always watch their tongues when they speak.  But, you know what?  It’s just not good enough is it?

There’s that part of me that wants to care more about the things that people say, write, and do.  It’s the same part of me that protested and debated everything that I disagreed with in my youth.  I don’t know if it’s the same part of me that’s going to miraculously blossom out of me on my 28th birthday, or if it’s forever going to stay buried inside.

But at least I’ve still got that part of me that has me questioning, just how far are we willing to push our boundaries, and just how far is too far?

Credit: normanack on flickr

There was indeed a time before emoticons and text messages, tweets and facebook status updates.  In this time I was well aware that the girls around me were passing notes and the fellas were talking shit about me behind my back.  And perhaps it’s the state of the world speaking or just my own acceptance of the way everything has changed, but it’s all got me asking about the secrets that we’ve kept and the openness of absolutely everything.

So, gone are the days of me trying to hide my coded sexuality in journals and mix tapes.  Gone are the characterures of dreams on paper, and long glares out my window in the middle of summer, just hoping… for something to happen.

Everything has become available and easy, sex, work, and booze have all become efficient means to an end.

So what does this say about our secrets?  What does this say about our creativity?

It all has me wondering if we are indeed less creative if we have nothing in safe keeping.  When nothing is held safe and secret is it possible that there is nothing worth saying?…  What is the point in speaking figuratively in metaphors if your audience is aware of exactly what you speak?

So is it time to close down this mouth of mine?  Is it time to put my fingers in prison, and coax them back into their hammocks for the summer?

Up and down, I’ll rub these overworked didgets and put them to bed for the night.   I’ll find those long lost glands in my neck and above my eyes.

I’ll sit here silently, and attempt for a change, to not think myself into…

Most who know me would agree that I’m a fairly patient person, at least when it’s my temper that’s concerned.  I’m by no means a saint, in fact I’ve been known to rage in the comfort of my own home on numerous occasions.  It’s in my dealings with others face-to-face where I seem to shine.  I’ve on occasion had red wine spilled on me, had soup dumped in my lap, and had on many an occasion the most socially challenged person to deal with over the most trivial of transaction.  And everytime, I feel as though I’ve demonstrated a copious amount of courtesy and restraint.

That’s not to say that I don’t have a little freak out once I’ve left the room, but in the face of common human differences and errors, I think I do a damn good job of treating my customer service technicians with the best of my behaviour.

That was until today.

It was reconfirmed to me today why I left TD Bank so many years ago.  As a member of their institution for most of my life, there simply came a day when I realized that paying $18 a month for a simple chequing account was not for me.  I stayed on as a Visa holder and to this day haven’t had to deal with any of their frustrating and useless customer service representatives.

Impersonality is, perhaps, one of the hardest hurdles to breach in big corporations, but you’d think that when you are dealing with people’s cash–their savings and their livlihoods–you would put the customer relationship at some sort of paramount level.  You’d think as one of Canada’s largest financial institutions that they would have a certain degree of foresight.  You would think that after this many years of experience that they could see the value of a customer relationship for what it is.  Apparently this is far from the truth.

So after an hour on the phone (a large degree of that on hold), a disconnection, a redial (by me), more hold time, an an eventual response that entailed “We cannot help you access the internet, you’ll have to go to your nearest branch with two pieces of id,” I lost my cool.

The poor fellow on the other side of the wire, who has no doubt been given no empowerment in his position, and simply has to redirect people from one place to the next, was unfortunately the victim.  An ex-partner of mine once worked in a call-center, and would certainly agreed that I had indeed “escalated,” rather, the point at which the customer reaches a level of such frustration and anger that the operator has no choice but to transfer them to the next in command.  Unfortunately, I didn’t give the fellow the chance, and simply hung up the phone.

And for a moment it felt good.  It was refreshing and cleansing to get that off my plate.  I managed to squeeze a couple more obscenities into my day.  I managed to give the operator another story to tell their spouse when they returned home that evening,

“God I hate this job, this one guy today, fuck was he pissed…”

I managed to do all these things while I should have been quietly sitting and studying.

All this, while at the same time completing absolutely nothing.  Not one thing was accomplished and the only person who benefited from my phone call in the first place was my cell phone provider, who no doubt appreciates my generous use of my day time minutes.

God Damn It!!

None of us likes denial.  And though it’s something I’ve despised about myself, I’ve been ripe with it for as long as I can remember.  And it’s not just denial about myself, but it’s also the denial that I dish out to others.  Pushing and shoving, I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life completely content in doing it all on my own.

But we grow through these things.  In time even the hardest of us comes to terms with our weaknesses, and all of a sudden we’re heading in a different direction.  10 years ago I would have never guessed that I’d be in business school, that I’d be living in Vancouver, or that I’d be slowly taking out my piercings and chopping my hair shorter and shorter.

Even the little wrinkles that have found their homes beside my eyes are surprise visitors to my visage.

So I shouldn’t be surprised to be struggling.  I shouldn’t be shocked that there are those amongst me–wandering the streets and the gay bars–that are also fighting with denial and struggle.

Dating in this city has become a tug-of-war, a fight between one side and the other.

Surprise results to seemingly amazing experiences.  Over and over, nights that seem to break the mold, all end up stale.  Moreover nights that seem exciting and hopeful, turn into empty phone calls and emails.

Perhaps I truly have entered my Saturn return.  Perhaps all the cells in my body are becoming geriatric; all of them in diapers and walkers.  Every last one of my cells is ready to end their 7 year journey and make way for the next round.  Pheromones have began to shift and alter themselves on my neck and in my wrists, and everything I’m transmitting to those around me is confusing and misleading.

Perhaps, I’m just waiting for my head and heart to catch up to all the cells that are race, race, racing away.