Category: relationships

old friends, new friends

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Not my old friends, but my wife’s childhood best friend.

It’s nice to see them pick up where they left off and it’s nice to really get to spend time with the woman my wife always talks about, and her husband, who seems nice as well, and has quite the tragic backstory.

Of course, my wife presented me as the rich kid, which you know, I’m not. I’ve lived more in poverty than not and my parents didn’t really start making a lot of money until I was well into my teens.

I spent much of my childhood in awe of my cousin, who had the complete Star Wars figurine collection, including the Darth Vader head carrying case, while I had a basic Princess Leah and Luke, plus Chewy, which was cool. (And, they had cable. We didn’t have cable. We had antenna.)

I didn’t even have Han. No Landspeeder or X-Wing.

We were poor, kids.

(Kidding, of course – we were comfortably lower-middle to middle and then upper-middle, so my childhood was mostly a matter of restraint – two working parents, comfortable, without excess.)

Anyway, I went to a dirt school, and most of the people I knew and hung out with didn’t come from money, and the ones that did were like our family, stable income, some extra, nothing dramatic.

Normal kids.

So, when people say that I’m a rich kid, it bugs me, because they see how well my parents have done for themselves, but they see it from the later point of view, where that money was made largely after we were already teenagers, or out of the house.

My mom cut my hair with a bowl on my head, for crap’s sake. We never had brand name shit (and I still don’t give a fuck about that), except for one long sleeve Vuarnet shirt, the kind that changed colour when it got wet, which made sweating real awkward.

Fancy, we were not.

Target: 900 words
Written: 815 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, Jules Verne
Comics: 100 Bullets 13-16
Music: Other Standup, Bill Hicks (we are the hooligans)

evil dead: the musical 2

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Ah, it’s been a while since I saw it, but man, what a great show, even if this version was a bit more amateurish than the one we saw in Toronto in 2007. They’re doing Rocky Horror in the spring, which should be cool. They’ve already got a Magenta, and I’m getting a Janet.

I’m not sure, but I think Evil Ed might end up as Frankenfurter.

Anyways, one of the four musicals I’ve actually enjoyed, the other being Book of Mormon and Phantom.

I think the best part was my wife’s uncontrollable nervous laughter whenever she was getting sprayed with blood.

I guess I know how she’ll be in an emergency now.

Target: 900 words
Written: 1284 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth, Jules Verne
Comics: 100 Bullets 9-12
Music: Standup, Bill Hicks (in which he destroys his own comedy recording and issues one of the angriest takedowns of a heckler ever, beautifully. I'm not sure "I'm a drunk cunt!" wouldn't get him cancelled nowadays, but hey, I laughed)

down in a hole

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This world is too expensive, and my wife has expensive taste.

I think it’s time for a restructuring. A little deflation could save everyone.

Target: 900 words
Written: 816 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Lost In The Barrens, Farley Mowat
Comics: Once And Future 27-30
Music: Unknown Pleasures, Joy Division (I'm literally wearing a shirt based on this album cover right now, so you know, I'm good)

lost in space

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I’m back to it – the non-Molly Parker, plus-Marta Kristen version, in which I don’t understand the infatuation with the latter.

I mean, she’s beautiful and all, but she’s window dressing most of the time in the show, like her mother. Nice to look at, but ultimately, boring.

In the Netflix version, Judy and Maureen were anything but (and I would be lying if I didn’t have an unnatural attraction to Molly Parker’s Maureen). Strong women are wonderful.

Flirty and light can be fun, but when the chips are down, I prefer a woman who engages, not one who demures.

Long term, superficial is unsustainable. But the depths of a strong woman?

They can feel so big, you get lost in them.

(In a good way, an endless exploration way, not a strong woman subsumes a weak man, though certainly, in any gender context, strong personalities do have a tendency to swallow the meeker, and that’s something to explore as well, but not in this particular instance. Men who wish their women are weaker are, well, sad and pathetic, and vice versa).

Anyway, so be it. I am married to a strong woman, of that there is no doubt. I’ll be the John to her Maureen any day.

Target: 900 words
Written: 992 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Wishsong Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Once And Future 20-22, Die 20
Music: Oh, Fuck, Even More Bootleg Rolling Stones Live Shit, The Rolling Stones

wine headache

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My parents showed up unexpectedly last night for a porch visit, which turned into three bottles of wine and the complete derailing of any plans I had for reading, writing, et al, etc, et whatevera last night.

And now I’m hungover.

This is not shaping up to be the catch-up weekend I was hoping for.

Target: 900 words
Written: 1990 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Queen Of Sorcery, David Eddings
Comics: Die 3-5, The Wicked + The Divine 42
Music: Again With The Live Stuff, Iggy Pop

return from blue mountain

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Sounds like a cheesy Eighties find yourself adventure or maybe even a horror movie, where the kind of geeky lost soul goes somewhere, has an adventure, realizes it was all bullshit, and then comes back to sweep the girl of his dreams off her feet.

You know, the girl he’s only ever really known in passing, and who, in reality, would never date this guy who comes out of nowhere with his newfound perspective on life, all based around love (love he has for her, but she’s never really thought about him; she’s too busy diddling over the football star).

He’d have had some partying fun, met a girl who was maybe manipulative, but who would have taken him through his first real sexual experiences, but then betrayed him unexpectedly, making him realize he didn’t actually want what he thought he wanted, and so, he comes down the mountain, proposes to the girl, who is (because this is all about him and not her) expected to swoon and drop everything to be with this brand new bodhisattva/reformed bad boy, because love, and we all jump onboard and presume happily ever after, but really, what do these people even know about each other?

There’s likely some gratuitous nudity, because in this world, women are objects, not people, so making lewd jokes at their expense and paying some struggling actress to doff her top (and probably threaten that she’ll never work again if she doesn’t, or promise that the big studios will come running, and other big stars did it, and also, other stuff, behind the scenes, you know how it works, wink wink nudge nudge), and we’re all just fine with it because we love sexual freedom (which we do), but we also love the exploitation of women as a secondary class, and if we can combine the two… Hollywood!

Anyway, we’re back from Collingwood, and let’s hope that movie never gets made.

It sounds positively horrid.

Target: 900 words
Written: 247 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Gregor And The Curse Of The Warmbloods
Comics: The Wicked + The Divine: 455 AD 1, The Wicked + The Divine 29-31
Music: Random Covers, Spacehog (I've hit a very strange area of my playlists)

the first day of school

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Not that this matters to me, not having young kids, but it seems to have stirred up a hornet’s nest. So many things happening.

I laid the birds fall haiku to rest; the reception has been fairly meager but divine, having garnered more reads than I would have expected (~1600 by my guesstimate), which is crazy.

Secondly, my wife’s work released v2 of their Pay Equity Act chart, which was unchanged from the first one and reiterated the vindictiveness the COO and his cronies have against certain people. I have a lot to say about that, but we’re still figuring out the best path forward.

And then, of course, unreasonable human beings being unreasonable, and catching poor, defenseless creatures who can’t speak for themselves in between. No one’s vanity should come over another being’s life. I’m disgusted by the whole thing, especially when there’s such an easy solution to be had, if only one particular party would stop being entirely unreasonable and give the tiniest little bit (or one would stand up for his damn self for once and realize none of this behaviour is appropriate, normal or healthy). The level of selfishness involved is appalling.

Let’s just say that entitlement and selfishness bother me most of the time in other people, but when it reaches this point, I’m at a loss for words. The whole thing is disgusting.

Yes, the first day of school made me want to scream. To rage. But against what? Injustice? This world gets less just every day. Selfishness? This is a good one, but the selfish don’t feel guilt like the rest of us. Only their own vanity, their own narcissism that needs feeding.

Taking responsibility for one’s bad behaviour requires understanding that one has committed bad behaviour in the first place, and I’m sure that none of these people would be willing to admit that.

After all, that wouldn’t get them what they want, no matter the expense to others, and no matter how small and petty the behaviour was.

At the end of the day, I would like to reshape my life to exclude all of it, but circumstances being what they are, we must suffer through the shit; we cannot control the actions of others, only our reactions to them.

The question is: how much shit are we willing to take, to hold onto jobs, onto love, onto relationships with the innocent victims of another’s sociopathy?

How far must we go? How much must we endure?

And is it worth it for the scraps we are thrown from the table?

Anyway, fuck today and most of the people involved.

Maybe reason will rule the days to come, but I doubt it. We aren’t that lucky.

Target: 800 words
Written: 649 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Hail To The Chin: Further Confessions Of A B Movie Actor, Bruce Campbell
Comics: I Hate Fairyland v2 7-9, Untold Tales Of I Hate Fairyland v2 1
Music: Random Acoustic Stuff, Screaming Trees

the best laid plans

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Friday night and we’ve washed the dogs. It’s only six o’clock. We’ve already eaten. They’ve walked.

Everything is done.

That means time to read, time to play. Time to think of better dates with my wife than dogwashing and trips to the dump.

Something involving candlelight, wine and maybe lingerie and massage oils.

Instead, my parents drop in, unplanned, for a porch drink.

Ah, well, as my wife says, who knows how long they have left? Apparently, we can fuck later. Who knows how long we have?

Target: 800 words
Written: 674 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King (new book!  a classic!)
Comics: I Hate Fairyland 8-11
Music: Under A Billion Suns, Mudhoney (so much better than Vanishing Point, which was bad, at best)

of icons and disappointment

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I think I liked life better when my idols weren’t being constantly accused or exposed as total creeps.

You expect it from Republicans, but man, I wish so many of the people who I grew up thinking as good people, people to pattern oneself afterward, didn’t turn out to be assholes.

Maybe they didn’t.

So much of it is speculation and hearsay, so much of it divorced from reality and put upon with one’s own prejudices, that a person has no choice but to take it with a grain of salt.

It’s one thing when accuser after accuser comes out of the woodwork, because this shit tends to be serial among the rich and famous, but when it’s isolated, without evidence or corroboration… do we still believe every story?

I’m all for believing survivors, but to assume that every accusation is the god’s honest truth is downright naive, and actually malicious when put into practice. Weaponized outrage.

Some of the stuff coming out of all this has been truly horrific; some of it much more complicated than its rage conductors would have us believe. Blind belief never serves anyone. Wouldn’t it be more beneficial to be certain, as certain as one can be, and thereby discourage those who would wield outrage for personal gain, revenge or whatever against trotting out lies and thereby destroying someone’s life and career?

Anyway, thoughts on the day; I still side with women, in most cases, with the caveat that blind acceptance is always a bad idea. Myopia is never a good look. We owe it to ourselves and the presumption of innocence to at least wait for the facts before we condemn.

Target: 800 words
Written: 402 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Regiment, Farley Mowat
Comics: Postal 24-25, Postal: Mark 1, Postal: Laura 1
Music: Out Of Exile, Audioslave

sometimes you gotta listen to your gut

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Or your colon. Or your horoscope.

Things are going bad to worse. I’ve been awake since three in the morning; a casualty of our rat terrier’s deathly fear of storms.

She’s from Texas, originally, which means she likes heat, spicy food and hates fucking storms, because I’m guessing she’s been through a few.

We don’t know the details of her background prior to our rescue; there’s been hints that it was a total hoarder situation, followed by a neglectful situation involving asshole kids.

My gut told me we needed her. Her gut tells me she can’t live without me.

She is my shadow. I am her helicopter parent.

We are in love.

My gut tells me, this one is going to hurt, when it finally comes, almost as much as the Pyrenees.

Or worse.

Target: 700 words
Written: 734 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Elfstones Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Postal 13-14, Symmetry 6, Eden's Fall 1
Music: I Don't Give A Fuck About You, Pearl Jam