completely lost interest in writing this. oops!

it had been a long week. i had been working a heavy caseload of work projects and my boss having a very slow nervous breakdown. he had been winding up for about 3 months and we had finally progressed from "let's talk about this at lunch" to "if i don't pick up this phone call at 11:40am, you'll probably leave me a voice mail threatening to kill yourself." It was my fault inasmuch as i enjoyed taking on issues and looney tunes friends. my arrogance demanded that people lay out their issues in front of me and then hear my solutions... that's how i start. then i realize when it's far too late that i'm not a trained professional and the person i've been listening to needs about a handful of lithium and a vicious beating to get them sorted out.

work was work. i was thankful that even when it was a shitty day i was consistently invigorated and willing to push through the day. hell, i'll even come in on the weekends! i don't have a life. i'll work a saturday if i get to wander in on my own time wearing shorts that are disintegrating every minute they're on, great! better to get out of the house and do something productive instead of my usual shopping jaunts or the more slovenly afternoons where i lay around in bed naked & read comic books. sometimes it's good. just not all of the time.

work was work but not when work started calling me. my perky young boss had been promoted up the chain & i reported into the VP again. being that i was a lone wolf & no one else did what i did, there wasn't a lot of urgency to find me a master. i did my shit & didn't need supervision unless it was negotiating a yearly pay increase or tell someone i was booking vacation time.

with sugar tits twink boss gone out of my life i was back into the big bosses life. when i started out at the company he was a manager & we got along just great. moreso because he left me alone and i did a good job. the aforementioned ego i cart around everywhere always lets me down eventually. in an inadvertent lunch invite [i saw him as i was going out for a walk & panicked when he asked what i was doing] landed me into his life.

i'm flypaper for the mentally ill [who am i to judge? i'm straight up INSANE], the emotionally wounded [i just want you to feel better], and hypochondriacs. the latter stems from my life long obsession with human biology and overwhelming shame of my numeric dyslexia that prevented me from being a nurse or ambulance attendant.... i have a burning fascination with learning and sharing body physiology stuff with anyone who'll listen. this encourages hypochondriacs to flock to me... and while i enjoy that initial nurse Nightingale shtick, it does wear thin after a while.

so, with this heady mix of emotionally disturbed psychos who think they have cancer any time they get a cold i find myself getting overwhelmed at times. and by "at times" i mean once a quarter i get sucked into some nutbars life and the only one to blame is me for getting wrist deep into things.

the now Big Boss had evolved from a constant lunch date [which made me INSANE as i use lunch breaks to go for a walk] to someone who would drop by my place to lay on my couch and cycle through crying then anger then angry crying. what am i supposed to do? tip the futon over and put the boots to him for making me mental? probably not.

nothing to do but listen and try not to look too glazed over when he brought up the same problem again and again and again...........

"unknown brother" - the black keys

baseball has been a late in life indulgence. i never gave a shit about it until i turned 30. that's a lot of time to turn your nose up at something.

being a hockey fanatic means i enjoy the creamy load of sporting events that's fast paced and involves fist fights. i don't get basketball... worse still is my understanding of football. why the fuck do they keep blowing the whistle? i don't even know.

all of this aside, baseball was something that i went to see live once every couple of years to service as a night out of Waterloo. always involving skipping off work early to beat traffic, stressing over getting to Toronto and the frantic search to stuff food into my mouth & make it to the game for the first pitch. more of a novelty and the motivating factor stemmed from having time to chat with my roommate and clap occasionally.

we had fantastic chats up in the cheap seats sans beer, the weed i smoked before leaving waterloo long disappated and sobriety bleeding through. way back when SARS devastated toronto's tourist industry Jays tickets were for the most part free save for a service fee. i was just getting over a cold & had a barky cough. nothing like SARS but it was beautiful to let loose a cough and have 4 rows of people around us scatter. marooned in our own oasis of seats we laid into graphic chats. i took the time to lovingly detail what being a domanatrix involves to my then roommate.
"so you're saying my biggest overhead is buying the outfits?"
"that and you'll have to get an arrangement with a hotel to trick out of it. it's more like a pay off. so i don't know how much that'd be."
"but i don't have sex with the guys?"
"no. you just beat the shit out of them. you'd love doing that. well, maybe you'd have to pee on them."
"nope."
"don't be a fucking baby. you're still not having sex with them & no need to take a bathroom break."
"i dunno. i don't think it's going to happen."
"what if i showed you some outfits?"
"i don't think i have the body for them."
[tit-face... she's beautiful & spent hours at the gym but still saw a fat kid in the mirror]
"that's the beauty of it! you get strapped into this PVC & leather get up and it does all the work for you! i know you can clip around in high heels and that's most of the battle. do you think you can balance on one leg?"
"what for?"
[pausing to watch a ball zing into the foul zone]
"get the guy to lay on the floor and have him suck on the heel of your boot."
"huh, i think i can balance long enough for that."
"i'm not telling you to be a dom, i'm just saying the option is always there."
"something to think about...."

many moons later i moved to Toronto. with my health in shambles and low on cash i would eat my $4 falafel and fantasize about when i'd be able to see a baseball game... a concert... buy new socks.... anything but have an $8 a day budget. the idea of seeing baseball became a type of pastoral myth of something that happened in the good old days and became layered with a lot of frills. beer. hotdogs. screaming at players knowing that Toronto has one of the worst/best fields for players hearing fans in the stands.

work came and i started building myself back up. i didn't have to be a shut in with fragile health problems erupting out of me every other week... and most important of all: there was no fucking excuse NOT to go to a game. if i can find a place using the TTC a brain damaged monkey could. there's not even a rush after work. you can take your sweet ass time to get some food & party favors down your gullet before leisurely stepping into a cab to get dropped off.

my homeboy moved to the city a few months after me. he's the slutty little sister i never wanted but learned to love. he's a tuffy twink who could hang with any straight dudes and give a handjob to a lithe 20 year old at the same time. being a flakey libra i love people who can balance two types of seeming extremes. just makes for a well-rounded partner in crime.

after twink face moved we both realized that instead of talking over baseball when it was on tv i was watching.
"at first i thought it was like when the dog stares at the tv when The Dog Whisperer is on... but i think you're actually following it."
"no way man, just waiting to see if the camera throws it to a hot chick in the stands."
this dismissive attitude would be followed minutes later with a question about what the commentators were saying. parsing through the lingo i would add it to the memory bank and then integrate it into curses i would hurl at the screen when someone fucked up. this usually followed the second bottle of prosecco that we split.

we made an agreement to catch a few games over the year and thus far we're doing well. 5 under our belts and 3 were staggeringly good. i didn't fully GET why they were so good other than it was a good opportunity to jump up and down.

at a slower game we found ourselves beached in a sparsely populated section sucking back over priced beers & floating in a haze of green. we leaned forward to peer over our fiefdom of the 200's and the straight view to the outfield. from behind it would look like a skinny guy took his fat frat boy buddy to a game and the shit that spewed out of our mouths would make your skin crawl.

Twink face is a good teacher and lovingly told me about players and why they deserved our ire. an ex-Toronto player loped out to the outfield and turned around to face the game. a guttural boo thundered out of TF and i screamed, "YOU'RE A FUCKING CANDYASS, RIOS!" if there's a god, our dulcet chimpanzee screams wafted down & hung over their heads like stink.

More beer and the luxury of relaxing with our arms stretched out in an empty space. as kind as i am, there's still a tiny part of me that's a raging asshole who wants to tell an opposing team player that i'm going to finger bang his wife tonight.

there's really no age cutoff to develop a taste for frivolous events. never going to get football tho. that's just stupid.

aural reaction

when reading someones response to the question of which sense they'd loose if given the choice, i realize i have a lot of anxiety about it. a lot. it's rather tough to even discuss it with anyone unless it's a one on one conversation. i thought i should take to le blog to see if i can hash it out.

i'm dating a girl who has no sense of smell. she was in a horrible accident where a car hit her and she smashed her head really badly in one spot. in the weeks after she came out of the haze of recovery she realized something was off. eventually she realized that the knock to the head damaged the area that handles the sense of smell. there were two options. it would heal over time & come back or it was smashed in & never to work again.

the latter was the case. she still has no sense of smell but can still taste things. tho she has a hard time gauging the spiciness of things. as someone who loves heat i'm always shoveling all the food down my throat, but to a wimp it would be far too much to handle.

she has to live and die with a kitchen timer as she'd never know if something was burning save for when the smoke piles out and it's too late. also it's nerve wracking to guess if you do or don't smell after cycling and opts to shower far more than what's needed.

i am bad for scents & then layering them. i love cologne & sandalwood oil... scented bath washes and shampoo that hovers around the body. the 3rd time i went over to her place to hang out prior to dating i recall spending over 30 minutes trying to decide what i'd put on. "this cologne with sandalwood on top? just sandalwood? something more natural?" and then realized she can't smell it & I was just jerking myself off essentially as it wouldn't even register with her.

it's always fascinating to talk to her about it. since i'm so scent-driven i don't just tell you what it reminds me of, i tell you the beginning, middle and end. it's not JUST this, it's a bunch of things. it's similar to describing wine. it's not enough to throw one word out, i work hard to capture all of it. twice i've sold myself cologne as the sales staff listened to me describe what everything registered in my brain as i smelled deeply then threw coffee beans in a bowl under my nose as a scent sorbet. one lady wrote down my description & when i wandered past her a month later said she had sold tons of the cologne using the descriptive words.

needless to say, smell is a detailed story for me and it's never enough to simplify. poetry is lost on my wordiness [see above] and 3 words doesn't cut it.

with smell being so finely tuned i have to confess i stress about my sense of hearing. i spent over a year & a half in and out of ear specialist offices getting multiple hearing tests and fretful "hmms" as someone shone a light into my ears.

i developed eczema in my ear canals that was like having a moderate to severe ear infection. it was hot, sticky and felt like bacon grease attempting to slither out my ears all day and night. there was blood, skin pieces and a sickly fetid output of infection constantly. if i turned my head suddenly i'd get a wafting slap of it and stressed myself out that it was noticeable to anyone within 3 feet of me. it had to be... if you've ever seen a cat with ear mites, you get the visual. pathetic scratching, dejected little face and no actual relief. just the burning impulse to try again.

the infection slowly clouded my hearing. at first it was just a matter of paying close attention. then it progressed to being lost if there were too many people talking at the same time. then i would walk into work on days where the infection had gotten worse and there was no hearing in one side and hardly anything on the other.
when i was an executive assistant i would have to take meeting minutes and finally i got busted when the meeting minutes spiraled from detailed to a half page of point form notes. most gathered from email follow ups where i prompted attendees to reiterate their points for clarity. when it was actually because i couldn't hear them down the long boardroom table.

my one boss took me aside to ask if i was getting bored hence the lack of detail, but i finally confessed it was because i couldn't hear properly. he was good about it and made me sit in the middle of the table to get a better snap shot of everyone speaking. and encouraged me to prompt people to reiterate if i wasn't sure. and had to present him with an appointment card for an ear doctor to show i was getting it looked after.
thus far my dr was her usual indifferent cunt self and said it was an ear infection and it'll clear up. after 4 visits and a nurse syringing a jelly bean sized plug of dried blood out of my left ear she finally gave me a referral to an ear specialist.
the ear doc said it was a severe case of eczema and wound up taking pictures to submit for a conference discussion. yay. regardless he began documenting my hearing range and had to come in every 3 months for follow ups. every time it slipped more and he finally snapped at me that i was faking some of the hearing tests.

you can *try* to guess on the tests... or i thought i could. i'd throw my hand up to say i could hear a tone before i actually could. but the trained professionals can see on your face the subtle pulls and jerks when you can hear something. i was just trying to boost my mark up and finally got called on it. it was getting worse and the ear doctor said i need to start dealing with it as he didn't know how far it would degrade.

every appointment he had to pin my head down to use tiny picks and a mouse-ear sized suction to try and clear my ears and see if it helped. it didn't sound like i was living in a fish tank after... for a few days a week max.

i was freaking out inside. i hid it completely save for complaining about how painful my ears felt. i refused to use the phone as i could never turn the volume up enough. i drastically decreased listening to music as it sounded like what a goldfish senses swimming in a bowl. blurry and more thuds and clicks, not what i remembered it sounding like.

i switched jobs and had a co-worker call me out on how i was looking at her lips, not eyes. i had opted to focus on the mouth to compensate and hope i would be left alone more often than not instead of dealing with not hearing things properly.

have you ever seen the movie "It's All Gone Pete Tong"? it's about a dj who goes deaf and slinks into a complete world of madness and depression. the high pitched ringing feedback and the recreation of him listening to people terrifies me to this day. it's so spot on... the lying or aping conversations to try and duck out of coming to terms with what was happening. the ringing whine that you can't shake and the blurbling way sound is heard makes me shake just writing this.

I listen to music a lot. i would say i have my iPod on for 2 hours minimum a day not including listening to radio on my computer. i can't play music to save my life and would be medically diagnosed as tone fucking deaf. which makes me custom designed to be a music critic: talentless, voracious to consume as much as i can and stuck up. if i never saw another concert again I would have seen more than the average person in their lifetime. the autistic-minded detachment i feel around people is connected through music in my head. it's my hug when i struggle with human contact. and when my hearing slipped every time i had a test i became fantastically depressed. it was something i enjoyed being pulled away from me one decibel at a time. the only thing that registered was drum and bass music being so low & throbbing. eventually, i started loosing some of the tones in that and i stopped listening to all music. i couldn't hear the tv and instead hid behind Kurt Vonnegut & Charles Bukowski books. reading them aloud in the garage as i laid on the dusty couch was a tedious exercise as i couldn't tell if i was saying things coherently. It forced me to listen to the drone of words and not get even more detached than i already was. also, it's vaguely unsatisfying to cry and not hear yourself... which sounds silly, but i found it upset me to no end. it wasn't even a release and my face getting hot and teary only inflamed my ears more and felt like i was burying myself deeper.

the ear doctor noted that i hadn't been taking a massive dump in hearing loss and hopefully was plateauing. there wasn't an option to get a hearing aid as the eczema would not be abated and shoving plastic in there would be a bad idea. the ear doc patiently scraped out my ears tut-tutting the shit he yanked out, occasionally showing me if there was something remarkable. i was pinned down so i wouldn't move during the delicate procedure so there really isn't much to do but mmhmm every time something was waved in your face.

after a year and a half of having what felt like a mid-range ear infection i just started to accept that this might never go away. as-is. it was just a part of me indefinitely. the doctor still tried as much as he could to tame the weeping infection to try and get me geared up for a hearing aid but we were stuck in a holding pattern of appointments, tut-tutting and kind shoulder squeezes as he said loudly he'd see me again in a few months.

it was late spring and my friend needed an extra set of hands to help him dig up baby leeks to pickle. it was hours on your hands & knees ripping up leeks and trying not to alert people as we were on a public trail in the woods. we harvested and came home for the 2 hour process of cleaning & prepping the leeks before we made the brine. as we were doing a massive run of them, there was a lobster pot-sized vat of water, salt and vinegar to make the pickling brine. we worked in silence, only taking cigarette breaks with our nails packed with soil even after multiple washes. the second smoke break we turned the stove on to bring the brine to a boil. we came back into the kitchen to a haze of vinegar vapors that made our eyes get puffy and sputter out some coughs. back to work & after 3 hours being in a sauna of vinegar fumes we were done. i noticed my left ear near the opening felt firm and swollen. but nothing that was different from any other bad day.

i woke up at 3am crying like a child... it was so painful and i was dizzy. when i finally staggered up the 3 steps to the bathroom to look in a mirror the ear openings were almost entirely swollen shut. i could hear nothing. at all. in the slightest. of course this fell on a weekend when my roommate was gone and the doctors office walk in was closed due to vacation.

i reluctantly cabbed to a community walk in. i took a lot of cabs when i lived in waterloo so i barked the address to dispatch, hollered that i was temporarily deaf & couldn't talk. the driver was one i've had a ton of times and had two hearing aids. he made me sit for a minute to say where i needed to go and even gave me his cell number to text him when i was done to avoid the embarrassment of calling dispatch again.
in i went and told the nurse at triage that my ears were swollen & I couldn't hear. she jokingly started using huge arm gestures thinking i would find it amusing but put my head down on the desk and bawled. the people in the waiting area looked at me when she carted me out like i had just miscarried in the back office and thankfully was parked away in the corner. she came & got me after a short 2 hour wait to see the doctor. he got me to write out what happened and then went to shine a light in my ear. the black thingie wouldn't go in. then got a kids one. and it wouldn't go in. and then finally grabbed an infant-sized one that he couldn't twist in far enough to see. he wrote out "uh oh" on the paper. he kept me holed up in a room to try and squeeze ear drops down the tiny hole. eventually i could feel one side get some in & was sent home with anti inflammatory meds & a heavy antibiotic. 4 days later of total silence the swelling pulled back. another 4 days after that it was open again... and the eczema was completely gone. the only thing that came out was a long curl of dry skin in each ear and it was as fresh and smooth. no infection, no burning, no rotting skin.
i went into the ear doctors again and he was shocked. 50% of my hearing loss was from the infection & build up. i essentially came to with my hearing boosted exponentially. to the point that i felt freaked out by loud sounds as i'd been a long while since i processed them.

i still have hearing loss on my left side... which is great since i'm always a passenger in a car so i can tune out drivers really fast. the estimate is that i should be able to make it another 10 years before i need to get kitted out with a hearing aid... i can live with that. or more specifically, i can be in denial about it for a really long time before i have to deal with it.

queen street station

so i've been in toronto for just over a month now. still looking for work, still broke but mysteriously not at all freaking out. when i had tons of money to burn i was flipping out about something or just being an anxious mess... sure i need to churn something up for work soon, but even then i'm not freaking out. it'll happen.

more importantly, i'm not freaking out about the move. friends, those who, er, shall we say enjoy schadenfreude a bit too much... haven't been especially cool about it. i don't get questions on if i'm happy or not. only "you must hate it" or my favourite, "so do you regret it?" come on, shitheads. i revel in the misery of others too, but not overtly. i pull the George Castanza and firmly believe that i don't do that shit to people's faces. so, still sniveling, but a classy one? ok i got nothing. still, the fact remains that some people are nibbling on their nails waiting for this whole thing to fall flat. NOT EVERYONE! if you're pouting i don't mean you. jesus. go see what's on tv and get a life instead of dwelling on this.

ANYWHO, so yeah. i have some mopey chums waiting for this whole thing to die a slow death. and you know what? it might! or i might really enjoy myself here and never leave. or stay for 10 years, snap and move to the middle of nowhere. i have options. and that's the point. i'll take things as it comes.

and i can chalk it up to jealousy, but why?! who the fuck would be envious of me being a total r-tard quitting my cushy & shingles-inducing job and moving to a totally new city? who knows. i keep my distance and i think i'll work really hard to stay out of waterloo for a while so avoid feeling like i should have opted for something safe and comfy.

my moment of the day came after a haircut. i freaked 3 weeks ago and got my mane chopped at a hairdressing school. and while it was classified as "adequate" for the first week, it soon turned into "fucking ugly uneven picket fence i'm going to wear a beanie forever to hide it". not good. i lined up a job interview for next week and let's be honest, i'm not batting at a high average here look-wise so i pony up with nice hair and totally bukkake the interviewer with my wit & poise. not even being stuck up, i do well in interviews.

whatever.

so i put the feelers out for a good hairstylist and my neighbour/my roommate's ex boyfriend's roommate's boyfriend [yeah you just try to keep up] was suggested. he lovingly took my hair from horror show to something very stylish and sleek. tho i noted that my grey hair has gone from a smattering to supernova rapid growth. sigh. after getting that done i had to take the subway home from Queen street. i... had to ask someone where the station was. SHUT UP! he was tickled that i was polite and didn't ask him for change so it was a good stranger interaction. on the subway, after checking my blackberry 10 times that i was on the right platform, i hopped on and put on a stony face while standing. looking at myself in the window as the stations zipped by i got to indulge in my latent vanity checking out my new hurrrr... and then it hit me.

"you're in toronto. you LIVE in toronto. full time. this isn't just a weekend trip. you live here, bitch."

wow! ton of bricks. like, i've been happy but i don't think it clicked up until that moment. i wound up grinning and scaring the shit out of two chicks in front of me... but hey, it was a good thing. i waived to them when they got off at the next stop.

so i'm making friends all over the city.

fun stuff!

to be continued.

tandem handy

brad came in struggling with bags of groceries. i didn't bother getting up and interfering. more specifically, i didn't really have any desire to get up.
"hey guess who i saw out with Darren?"
huffing and struggling he grunted as he opted to slug it all to the floor.
"i.... ah... ah... i don't give a shit."
"fine then." i went back to doodling with a fountain pen. after some obligatory sorting and moving i could tell brad's ability to hold back was failing.
"well go on then, who was Ken Doll with?"
"who? oh.... oh no matter. it's just gossip. i should bite my tongue."
"don't be a coy cunt. who?"
gnawing on my bottom lip i became transfixed trying to make evenly spaced cross hatching lines. i always fuck up after the 20th swipe and it looks like garbage.
"nathan! who!"
"can you grab me a glass of water?"
"don't drag this out."
"don't make me drag it out. we play this little game and you like it. let the tap run a bit!!"
didn't sound like he spent a lot of time picking a glass out. i hate that. think!
"here! here. confess!"
gulping down a few mouthfuls i gasped. i was always on the verge of dehydrated....
"ahhh... Josh."
"THAT LAZY EYED FUCK?!"
"wasn't that the one who always swallowed?"
"yeah... like, i think he liked it more than fucking."
"hey, no judgement here man. we all gotta get off right?"
"look, no! don't change the subject. why the fuck would Darren go out with him? they're both such dedicated bottoms..."
"maybe they just waive their asses in the air like cats and kinda clap assholes together?"
"wuh...wah... no. oh man. i dunno what they do."
"you look perplexed. is it insane to think of them together? maybe they spoon like little puppies and tweeze their eyebrows in tandem?"
"see, shit like that. that's why people think you're homophobic. or at least self-loathinng."
"ohhhhhhh don't bring that up again. humor at the expense of others transcends gender and sexual orientation. everyone's up for grabs. just so happens i love mocking bummers."
"you're a bummer."
"i know. see, it's like this cycle. i, the hero...."
"NO. no we're not doing that Northrup Frye shit again. you lured me in once and that was QUITE enough."
"you GOTTA read the books! you're a fucking english student! it's your civil duty...."
"did you talk to them?"
"what? who? the boys? yeah i sat and had a beer with them. i got a tag team handie under the table."
moment trying to read me...
"ha ha. very funny."
"so quick to think that i'm bullshitting are we? so outrageous to think i'd get a double handy from two twinks, eh?"
"patience... running out... blood sugar so low... must... kill... old fag."
"go make a sandwich or something. you're useless to me unless you can focus. make me something too if you're up.?

CL ad... and yes, this is real

"don't be hating on me because i'm getting all the love from this ad."
he was horrified. sticking a bloody turd in his ear would have garnered less of a reaction.
"oh PLEASE i am not going to get jealous over you on craigslist."
i leaned back on the couch and popped some air out of my spine.
"no no, i know it's tough to swallow my creamy load of creativity sometimes. especially since you know i wrote a better one than you did."
he pushed his newly purchased glassed up his nose and sniffed. "i don't HAVE a craigslist post."
"liar. liar and charlatan."
"i don't need to rely on seedy websites to get laid."
"oohhhhhh SURE stick the knife in. wah wah, i can't get a guy to suck my dick at the bar, instead we just text for a half hour and decide who's hosting. you're so accurate. my way is just deplorable."
"sometimes i think you perceive me as a total slut!"
"quacks like a duck... makes the younger duck swallow on the first date... looks like a duck..."
he pinched his lips a little and tapped on his tea mug. we were both feeling irritated and awkward talking without any wine. we still drank behind each others backs, just nothing overt. i'll tell you, the amount of mouthwash we gargle with is staggering. i imagine it smells like rubbing alcohol and fermented grapes that fell behind a radiator all the time. but the point is we were being responsible liars.
"i don't think you're a slut. slut is a state of mind, you know? just that you get tail when you want it, i have to do a little bit of leg work."
Blip. my phone went off again. another email.
since i posted my craigslist ad i had received at least 4 to 7 emails a day responding. i had confessed to brad and i knew the brat had done an ad for himself with little response thus far. stellar.
getting older and also not getting laid for a long time had lead me to getting irritatingly horny. it was almost chemical at this point. i was like a grumpy terrier growling and giving the shank eye all the time. i jerked off 4 times a day, which is a huge increase since i can go 2 to 3 days without needing it. i will always be a camel with orgasms. i don't shrivel and die if i don't get laid... fuck, if that was the case i would have perished a long time ago.
still, i do have my limits. thusly we come to me at this stage in my life. i get hard using the toaster. i burned through all my good spank lube that usually lasts me months in 4 weeks. i was irritated with porn because it was never hard or nasty enough and found myself in the ennui of smut apathy. i had been getting a ton of coffee dates with Nice Boys who all wanted to get to know me before we got fucking. nice.
my wank sessions had been out of control. short of inviting a midget, it was a free for all in my brain. i had been burning for a guy to bottom for me but i had also been thinking about women. a lot. i've fooled around with a chick before but it was so boring it made me want to just call it off and go cum in the bathroom by myself. but these days i was so hot to trot i couldn't stop thinking about chicks either.
i had taken the time to craft something that would catch people's eyes. i didn't want to get the usual menagerie of swingers and sex addicts....
m/wm - 30 - downtown
queer guy who's curious about having a nite in with a couple. not
looking for swingers per se, but curious to know if there's any
nerdy/cute hipsters pref. on the chubby side. this is because i'm
chubby so if that's not yer cup of tea, no worries!
i'd like to fool around with a couple and really enjoy that dynamic of
having fun. NSA, laid back and willing to meet up first.
one little ad, so many replies. it was nuts. sure there were a ton of skeevy jerks but astoundingly, there were amazing people who wrote back. you just got the impression that the post snared a lot of people who wouldn't normally go trolling around for a threesome. the pictures ranged from adequate to luscious. some just wanted dirty email exchanges... a couple did call me to make plans to meet up. nothing had progressed yet, but i had an inbox full of potential meet ups and some luscious pic exchanges. shit, even if they were fakes it was thrilling enough to fantasize about.
i was bursting with thoughts and asking about if i was more likely to be murdered & raped [yes i'm aware of the order i put that in] in a hotel room or if i should meet up at a house after a bar meet & greet. Brad seemed bemused thinking that i wouldn't get too far but turned horrified when i was actually taking my pick and discussing the finer points of what i wanted to experience.
i didn't have the heart to tell him i was pretty sure i had been emailing his older brother & his bi girlfriend for the better part of 3 days. like, it might be him? maybe? no need to worry until i get a last name. which, amazingly, life on the internet dictates i get a cock picture THEN a last name.

one month out of a bag - click images for better resolution pics

so... for those not in the know, i've been a smidgen homeless this month. i was trying to get a new place for September but that totally fell through trying to compete with students. i took the plunge and couch surfed for September and i'm no worse for wear.

i had no idea just how homeless i was going to be. i didn't know if i would literally be on my own bouncing to multiple places or if i'd be lucky enough to stay put.

the latter was the case. for 2.5 weeks i looked after my friends 1 bedroom while he was in Europe. from there i've been able to stay with another friend. 85% of the week he's staying with his girlfriend so i have the place to myself and access to laundry.

before i moved i ordered the largest duffle from MEC. it could fit 2 twinkies or one tall guy if you chopped the legs and arms off to pack in around the head & torso. this won't seem morbid if you've ever gone purse shopping with me. i literally ask the sales staff how many adult male heads can fit in it. nothing to do with man hating, just to make it clear i'm looking for a larger circumference of a head. plus i freaking hate someone hovering over me buying a purse [i buy 2 a year and it's a big fucking deal when i get one] so it's startling enough to gain some space.

well, back to the story at hand.

i'm too much of a fucking princess to actually live lean. like i had these big visions of having a toothbrush, a pair of boxers, panties & 2 pairs of socks. then a pair of jeans and 1 tshirt. naturally, this was utterly retarded for me to think of since i'm a closeted princess. more like a prince. in that faggy kind of way. nothing to do with girlish endeavours, purely panic over not having all my shit within arms reach.

now i'm really fucked to try and cart this shit TO toronto... i'll have to come up with something.

anywho, i realized the spinal cord twisting monstrostity of a duffle bag was totally a waste. i only wore a handful of outfits over and over again. i decided to take on a little project as a strict reminder that i can live off of FAR FAR less if i need to couch surf again. the only thing not taken pics are the 2 pairs of jeans, one pair of black capris and my 3/4 length board shorts that i wore. add boxers, boxer briefs and some y-fronts [as dave chappelle would say, i "wear underwear wit dick holes in 'em] for gitches.

now, this would just be a small endeavor, but i JUST so happen to be staying with a friend who has a sewing dummy in his living room. he found it at the curb to be trashed!! jesus, i think these things are expensive. it doesn't adjust like new but it's surprisingly cool. i couldn't pass up an excuse to use it.

i KNOW i have the same outfits just in different colours... but that's the point. i love them so much they never make it more than 3 days without me caving and wearing them. tho i seem to consistently wear them around animals and getting them furred to oblivion after one day of wear.

here we go... all i really needed to pack to wear while everything was in storage.


American Apparel - The Summer Shirt: i worship these. this is the sluttiest style i have in shirts and they require me to skip my usual sports bra in lieu of a push up. i have them in multiple colours. i am a loser.


American Apparel - Unisex Tri-Blend Cardigan
i wash these like tshirts, incredibly rough on them and i have it in 3 colours. again, i can't justify it, but they look nice, feel nice and they can stand up to me washing them every goddamn week,


American Apparel - The Track Shirt - again, this shirt, multiple colours. they're so soft. they feel like the old shirts my dad gave me from the 70's/early 80's. that uber worn cotton feel but not transparent. they look good on my boxy/thick torso and hang juuuuuuuuust right.


Elements - Reversible hoodie with thumb holes, double lined. this is a hoodie i don't stray from for very long. the kid at the store sold it to me wearing it saying, "man, it's like business on the one side, party town on the inside! admittedly i don't really wear the loud pattern on the outside often, but it looks great poking out. the hood is a perfect cut for my pumpkin head and anything with thumb holes makes me happy.


Joe Clothing - Loblaws clothing section... $19 and again, wash it like a tshirt/really tough on it. this is my fall back thin sweater choice. fits me nicely and i will wear it for business formal over a collared shirt but most likely with jeans. not much else to say other than it was stupid cheap and from a grocery store.


Kukuxumusu - tshirt store from Spain. my friend brought this back from Barcelona for me. beyond the cute design, this one fits me perfect. i do pick and choose when i wear it due to the stoned sheepie, but it's a default "hey i don't mind advertising i'm a massive pothead who enjoys humourous comics."


http://www.kukuxumusu.com/shop/ highly recommend checking them out! i have other shirts and they're all super well made & obnoxious. check and check!


Ashbury tshirt. this was a rando find in a skateboard shop. because i'm always 16 and shop in stores for teenage boys. the line is a cool psychadelic vibe compaired to the usual urban and earthy imagery used in a lot of skate stuff. i have another in red of a mod dude in a cowboy hat pointing a gun. you are a better person for knowing this.


any time i do laundry i have about 15 1 inch pins to take off... this one was made by my friend. hairless twink ass with sparkly pink speedos. sometimes people see it from a distance and ask if it's a chick. if you know me really well, you'll know that odds are always it's gay boy shit.


this is not a test. this is the same damn caridgan and the Track Shirt from American Apparel. the tshirt is my absolute fave of the moment. i usually shirk away from red tones because i'm so Scottish and red-faced all the fucking time, but this one works. this is a newer colour in the cardigans... and... you guessed it. love it.


i will blow your mind... American Apparel Acid Wash Flex Fleece Hoodie. i can understand that this straddles ugly and questionable. when i picked it up off the sale rack it stunned me how super soft it is. and once i pulled it on, deal done. I would pay $19 for this, but not the $50 fucking dollars full price. i have no idea why i get stuck up about that but pay $50 for a cardigan... well, whatever.


American Apparel Track Shirt in black. i could buy 5 of these and wear them as an undershirt until the end of time. THE END OF TIME!!

that's it man. i could have just left them in a knap sack and i would have been fine. oh well, live, learn, realize you embarrassingly only wear the same outfit incarnation all the time.

god bless, Young Offenders Act

8 months on house arrest. i don't think that's too shabby. friends have served more than that and i'm assured i can do it standing on my head, but i do know how nuts they all wound up. and none of them made it much past six months without snapping.
oh yeah yeah yeah, i get it. i could be getting 4 fingers slammed up my twat getting called Sugar Cookie in jail. lock ups do scare me.

i haven't served any time since i was a teenager. and even then, that was juvie. which, let's not put that experience down, it was brutal. lilly white and meaty i wasn't appreciated by my fellow ladies on the native or black side of things. well, initially. my gift is my fat fucking mouth. i'll take the licks if someone jumps me. i'd rather talk my way out of it. annoying someone into leaving you be is an art. or they'd be so squirreled around that they wouldn't realize i had yapped my way out of a fight. naturally you need to keep a tally of those run ins. it's helpful math when trying to think about the odds of getting a tray smashed over you head at lunch.

god bless the Young Offenders Act. i mooched and screwed the system on the inside long and hard. slapped it on the ass and pulled its hair to milk it for all it was worth. no one knew how smart i was so i aped an epiphany of education to boost my appeal. it was the fucking Miracle Worker. my teacher was a loser with a teaching degree who couldn't cut it with kids. to be fair, i wasn't removing him from any students. my sisters in chains weren't really interested in more schooling so really, i was just making sure he didn't kill himself realizing his lack of usefulness. i looped this guy around and around my finger at a steady pace. it was pure joy to think in my bunk about how i could maintain the whole scene without being too stellar.

at night i chewed on my cuticles reading "under the volcano" and Henry Miller that i had never gotten around to checking out. i hid them and toted around "to kill a mockingbird" as my gee-golly-shit-i-can-done-learn book. don't get my wrong, i do like the book, just that i had read it in grade 2.

teacher-teacher was thrilled with my progress. i do feel that i was justifying his job with his fat Pygmalion dyke impressing with my learned skills. the head of the training and education bitch clocked me, but i held strong. she would try to trip me up dropping big words and theories on my head. just baiting me to come out and reveal my pantomime... always in character i didn't make it too overt. this shit all chalks up for a speedy release.

the fights i got into were minimal and the few times i laid a thrashing on some cunt we shook and made up before the guards could separate us. i'm willing to part with lunch for a few weeks to shut someone up. it was swill anyway so i didn't miss much.

i kept my head shaved and received many little looks and kisses from the white supremacist chicks and rednecks. pretty gross cunts but i guess everything looks good when you threaten someone into eating you out when you're on work detail. i hadn't been raped, but admittedly i wasn't entirely thrilled about the whole scenario. just not stupid enough to kick up a stink. there was no option for me getting some muscle to help out, just every broad for herself. my roommate was a hard as fuck native chick who hated my guts but i unrelentingly engaged her in stories and conversations until she told me to shut up. sadly i finally got a laugh with 4 weeks to go in my stint. i didn't derive enough pleasure from it to stay pen pals after i left, but still, a new fan is always appreciated.

packing up my cell, teacher-teacher came to say goodbye. he looked at my book pile lovingly mailed to me by my cousin who stole them from the library at home.

"these.... these are adventurous! i'm so glad you're setting the bar high!"

my roommate was napping/pouting and refused to roll over.

"teacher-teacher she calls you... but that girl could teach you. isn't that right, doc?"

"doc? heh, that your nickname?"

"YEAH man, we call her doc 'cause she smartest bitch on the block. could be a professor. teach you something, man. you so stupid."

i leaned on my bunk and smiled softly. "you should really read this one, my fave in here. went through it 4 times."

forking over a busted copy of "the brothers karamazov" he turned it over and looked up stunned.

"i was supposed to read this in second year... never got through it, just got the coles notes... guess i should read it."

"ya man, good stuff. thanks for the help. keeping book smart made sure i got my ass out on time. YOU SHOULD THINK ABOUT IT, LADY."

"ah shaddup. go home."

"i will... want me to write?"

"want me to knock your fucking teeth out before you go?"

teacher look scared and i just shrugged like it was some whacky sitcom dialog.

"i...well... hope to not see you here again."

"yeah me too... i'll do adult prisi if i fuck up again so juvie was just a lucky break. catch you on the flip side, man."

he looked dejected. did i ruin his faith in everyone? probably. was he going to kill himself at christmas? probably. but i'm not to blame, i'd just be one microscopic fuck up pain point. not the catalyst. in theory.

don't laugh.... it's actually mostly true

i find spooky stuff fascinating. i'm not at all sensitive to spirts of creepy residual feelings. my stoic side will tell you publicly it's all bullcrap. my inner flaky hippy cries out that there HAS to be something else out there.

i'm the type who would love to have a supernatural experience, but probably too blunt to catch things. it really has to slap me in the mouth.

in highschool i was dating a girl who came from a long line of Scots who fancied themselves as psychic or at the very least, sensitive to the residuals of something beyond memory and history. she read a mean and thorough tarot, even though i admit that's 90% cold reading a person.

she was a beautiful soul, but was terrified at me loping after the chance to experience some sort of ghastly apparition. she cringed and tried to tell me that no one should look for this stuff. it sat heavily on her and thought it ignorant to be an eager explorer.

a mutual friend had recently moved into a new home. well, new for her. the home had been part of the original 200 homes in my local community. i melt in Victorian era homes. the wood, the sounds, the layouts... an infinite realm for me to explore and i was hyper to get snooping. we walked in the door and i was giddy to get the tour. my ex stopped and stood up from untying her shoes.

"let's GO! i want to see what's in Heather's place!"

she was rigid and looked right past me.

"i'm not coming in. we can't go in. let's go. my mom is probably still in the driveway."

being my first little f-ed up highschool relationship i naturally wasn't well-skilled at being a positive partner.

"fuck this! everyone's coming over tonight. i'm not having a fight here in the front hall!"

she was a very passive and easy-going chick but she got hard real fast. "i'm NOT staying. it's..."

"it's what?"

"it's too sad. we can't stay."

she said it with little feeling beyond a tremulous waiver over the word sad.

captain dickbag me just threw my hands up and walked into the house. "you can sit here or you can come in."

she wouldn't move. wouldn't even take her shoes off. heather came to see what was taking us so damn long to come in. i made a joke that we had someone who'd seen too many Scooby Doo episodes and was worried about the mystery of the haunted yellow house.

heather gave a laugh. "i know, old houses are scary. come in with us and we'll take a walk. if you're too scared, hey, it's ok. just give it a chance."

she agreed but only if she could keep her shoes on.

into the house for a look-see. to die for. modern updates bookended with original wood floors and a staircase banister that could have supported a chorus line of girls sliding down it.

i was in heaven but my lady was still upset. she would sit in the living room but there were specific rooms she couldn't walk into. the upstairs bathroom, the study and the sun room were all off limits. she said she couldn't stand to be in them without feeling sick.

tour over, and the rest of the party began trickling in. we warmed my ex up with some drinks and typical nattering banter that happens when 16 year old chicks get into a room with wine coolers. we voted to chuck on a movie for a while before we piled out to be riff raff in the community.

it was something dramatic as i know we were all very quiet watching it. booze makes for multiple trips to the bathroom so no one batted an eye if someone got up to leave. heather just asked that we stuck to the downstairs bathroom to keep the general population out of her parents room and her dad's office.

in the lulled state of staring, i clearly heard someone walk up the stairs. there's no mistaking the creak of wood that old. left foot, right foot, hand on railing daisy chaining upwards. heather absently said over her shoulder, "hey man, don't use the upstairs one after this time, ok?"

none of us responded because, well, we weren't the one going upstairs.

the footsteps went up the stairs, down the hall. floorboards flexing and crunching overhead. then a swift slam of the bathroom door. the thud was jolting. none of us would be that ignorant to swing a door shut like that... right?

a friend asked, "hey, who *is* upstairs?"

taking stock we all looked around. all 8 present and accounted for. right? or...? we had to be drunk and missing someone. nope. that's all of us.

many perplexed faces and the final ruling was that simply it was the house percolating with noises and an open window plus a gust of air slammed the bathroom door shut. i wasn't buying into it. a house doesn't churn out the sound of someone mounting the stairs to go to a specific destination in the house. my ex looked beyond nervous and stood up suddenly.

"i gotta go home... right now."

heather talked her down off the ledge again. it was just a noise. it's nothing to worry about... don't stress. she agreed to stay and i reaped the reward of soothing a disturbed damsel.

a night plying ourselves with liquor scrubbed the incident from our minds temporarily and it drowned as the night rolled on.

the next morning my mom picked us both up. when i came out she was out of her truck and gawking at the house.

"amazing! my best friend Nina lived here when she was a kid! i can't believe you know someone who has it now."

we hopped into the truck and mom went off about how much she loved that house as a child. so much room and everything spoke to her imagination, just knowing how old it was.

i know my mom didn't grow up very wealthy, let alone Nina.

"how on earth did Nina's parents afford that house?"

"oh... real sad story. the previous owner hung himself in the bathroom so the house sold for cheap."

my ex covered her mouth and i was just stunned. that noise? those footsteps? the door slamming?

the sound of some ghostly entity who forever would walk up the stairs, down the hall and into the bathroom to die.

children in the wards

the psych hospital i worked at was a strange entity. most people see a nuthouse as a place where you get to leave. eventually. good behavior, rehabilitated...something that would allow you to get a pardon. where i was could be labelled a long-term care facility. as in, you came and you weren't leaving.

as shifts in how one deals with the mentally ill came, so did theories on how the patients needed to be treated. from en mass wards, to apartment style to the final push out into community-based group homes, many of the patients had suffered through all these various phases.

the one major aspect of the hospital was how it had a policy back in the day to never turn a patient away. regardless of age or severity or medical cost, they were admitted. and you didn't have to be a specific age or even demonstrate some sort of disorder. sign the papers and the deal was done. not to say it was all this scenario, but a few sad cases were from this old policy.

there was even a train stop behind the grounds that people could take. in the depression the stop was forever releasing tired clusters of people walking to the main administration building. many of them bringing children that they couldn't look after any more.

and to be clear, some of these kids had nothing wrong with them. families took stock of all the kids and decided which one would be the most disposable. the one who could be turned loose to free up some resources. can you imagine being taken onto a train with no explanation and marched into a building to sit and wait? you'd watch a parent or both of them leave the office with some papers and wonder what was going to happen. any child would hop off the chair, assuming they're going to follow their parents. but they would be held back and a new life started without any clear end in sight.

some parents tried to come up with a lie, some just walked. an old timer who had worked at the hospital talked about these passed on stories. children stunned and then screaming as they were pulled back from the doors. and that was it.

some kids did have something "wrong" but that was a wildly diverse diagnosis. some had slight learning disabilities that just made them stand out as the "dumb" kid in the family. some were hearing or visually impaired. mentally top notch and smart, but the declaration that they were untrainable was too much for parents to deal with.

and into the belly of the hospital they went. there were various wards set up in the 30's and 40's based on gender and age. there was even a nursery. no child would be turned away during these open moratoriums. the stories of the nursery workers deeply disturbed my mother who was a janitor at the hospital from when she was 17 until she retired.

she drunkenly spilled out a story when i was a teenager about the staff who were in the nursery. these babies were loved and tended to, just like any day care. but these kids don't ever go home. 24/7 being watched and tended to. every hissy fit documented and into a master file that grew larger the older they got. They stayed in this area until age 5 when they went to the older set which was 5 to 14. Mom described hearing one woman who had to turn countless children over as they turned 5. She said it was horrifying to hear her sob and shake. "they were like my own. i held them every day and then when it was time to go to the next ward we [the women working in the nursery] would cry and beg for them to stay longer. just a bit more time, they can't make it with the older kids... they can't be left alone at night because they'll cry. they can't cry because they'll be preyed on by older patients. who'll make sure they're safe?"

pulled out of one set of hands, they were set down into the next phase. a pastoral time in the nursery replaced with the learning curve of being around older patients. the women in the nurseries watched little faces peeking over shoulders, probably waiving goodbye. oblivious as they were walked into a completely new setting. and really, anyone can turn into an animal when you're left in a zoo for too long.

my own personal experience with this facet of the hospital came from my gang of guys i worked with. mostly between the ages of 30 to 55, they were mentally ill or handicapped. but that's not to say they didn't have memories and clear, albeit blunt emotions. many asked out of habit when their mommy or daddy were coming to visit. i had to be very careful and check a file before i said anything. i once absent mindedly agreed with a patient that they would come soon only to be savaged over the head with a meal tray when i turned around. his parents never came to visit after he was admitted. when he calmed down and we had our proverbial peace pipe [juice and cheetos] i asked him why he was upset with me. he thought about it for a minute and said, "mommy daddy..." and gestured with his hand in rounded motions. like when a kid pretends they're guiding an invisible airplane in their hand. he looked down and got quiet.

he had pantomimed the last time he saw his parents when he was 8. they signed a paper, and that was it for mommy daddy.

cane corso's are just big muffins

"are you two getting out of bed... or...?"
"why? why the fuck do i have to get out of bed? it's the weekend. i have a cold. i have a dog and really, i think this is all a jealousy thing!"

i readjusted myself to spoon closer into the beast. i was babysitting a furry brat for a couple of weeks while my upstanding citizen friends went on some homo boat cruise or tour around morocco or something. all i knew is i had a loaner 105 pound dog and i wasn't really interested in doing much more than cuddle and feel gloomy in bed.
Brad hated the dog. correction: he was scared of the dog. he had only been around wee scrubs and never got over seeing Abel stumping around the apartment like a muscular pony.

Abel was a lamb. truly the reason why i love large dogs. just a chilled out beast who was only frightening when play sparring with another mutt or when i was tardy feeding him. even the latter wasn't THAT bad. he just grabbed his chow pan and clattered it up against the wall until you came to acknowledge him. and if you ignored that, he was a good chum and would come find you. last time the woof was living with Brad and i, he was pissy that i took a shower without feeding him first. i came out to brad on top of the couch terrified with Abel bonging the food dish against the wall. it was just a bratty cadence of "feed me now. feed me now!"
brad gasped when i came into the living room to see what the noise was.
"Oh god... he looks angry..."
"jesus... you're a fucking fag wimp you know that? Abel, drop it." clatter. "good babe. go lay down."
he looked at me like i was some sort of omnipotent beast master and shook his head.
"look, we've talked so many times. Abel is a marshmallow. i trust him more than that cunty little schnauzer Mac has. Seriously, how many times has that bitch bit you or come REAL close?"
"like a million ti..."
"LIKE A MILLION FUCKING TIMES." Abel peeked around the corner and gave me the sad face.
"ok, listen. all you need to do is go into it confidently. he knows he's huge and if he can boss you around, he will. and you ignore his ass as much as possible so yeah he's going to be creative to get your attention. can you just pet him for a minute? I want you to be ok with him. not like last time where you just chickened out and left for the weekend."
"no... feed him first."
throwing my hands up i went to feed the beast. glomping down huge mouthfuls i scratched his back a little and smiled. i always got such an endorphin rush around animals. too bad i'm too irresponsible to actually own one instead of temp loaners. beastie face turned back to me dripping with smashed up kibble particles and a stumpy tail wag.
"you're a good lad. finish up and we'll take you for a walk with your uncle Brad."
"I have stuff to do."
"stuff, eh? ok then." i pulled out a brown paper wrapped joint. it was real pro-like and spun up by the fat jamaican dyke who i chatted up during smoke break at work. she was in a different office, but let me tell you, pothead homosexuals lock and load when we spy another like-minded individual. we had an arrangement where i turned over some of my ativan and she bequeathed me right proper spliffs. there were a conversation starter. and packed to the tits with brain melting goodness.
"mmmmmmmmmmooooooooooookaaaaay i think i'll come."
"that's what i thought. you're walking him."
"NO!"
Abel stopped eating and cantered over to see Brad.
"look what you did! you scared the baby! seriously, dude. let's just get over the fear of this."
my ringmaster proverbial whip of a joint was just enough clout to get him to consent.

raw pear and fennel salad is what i was envisioning

"i'm going to die... we've eaten nothing but raw vegan for 4 days in a row."
"no man, i have a contract for 7 days. get your shit wrapped tight because you have to endure it just a WIDDLE bit longer."
"veal... prime rib... lobster...."
"you can reward yourself on the other side of 8 days. trust me. nothing complex in and the nasty within just shits out."
"yeah. can we talk about that? your little supplement? the end result can only be described as violent and unrelenting."
"oh i know. it's like a condensed shot of fish oil bombing the hell out of your guts. clean slate. right right?"
"no, hey, i'm so not interested in talking about Clockwork Orange any more. we've really taken a large look at the topic and i feel that we've exhausted all discussions about it. and what it means to you. which is a lot. i know." he lifted a hand to silence my oncoming criticism. "hed-deh! shh. listen. we're done with it. it's over. we're through."
"fine."
"good."
"guess we don't need to talk about you going over to africa any more?"
"don't be that dick. just because i make the call that a topic is over, you want to drop something important to me."
"clearly it's a threat intended to demonstrate to you the importance of the topic that we are not allowed to talk about again."
"remember when we had that like, 36 hours where we didn't talk at all?"
"sure. i'm game."
i stood up to get some air out on the patio. admittedly, i was going nuts with all the bunny food. i could have eaten a steak raw with a baked potato on the side. but it was just a good plan to stay in lock down. get some shit sorted. get some half decent food in our guts and see what starts pulling back.
tapping out a smoke i leaned up to the balcony. i wish i could bring my meaty eastern euro booty call over. just... a bounce! that's it. we can make it quick! why am i negotiating with myself?
pulling down on a rationed cigarette, Brad shuffled out with a jug of orange juice.
"i actually feel a whackload better. like... i'm not saying you're right, just..." glug glug. "ahhhhh.... delicious."
good enough. i don't need to pander to get a really deep apology.

"i'm a lady" - santogold

Brad and i were having a dysfunctional sweat lodge. we had locked ourselves into the bathroom sans cellphones, booze, coke or that clutch of opium i had that never seemed to dissipate no matter how hard i tried to comsume it all. magical really, but i'm not here to present that phenomenon. no, tonight brad and i were locked int the bathroom only with joints. all natural paper. shit, the glue was probably made from sort of monkey spunk that was all organic.
admittedly, we had been... doing it up. often. as in too often. the boy couldn't even blame me any more. he was the one who seemed to come home more with the drugs. i acted stuck up and did them all before i came home to make it seem like i wasn't the dealer anymore.
we had been been well behaved otherwise. Brad was too fragile to poke into a fight. the publisher had told him to take a fucking jump off a cliff with his new book. like, 'give me my advance money back, bitch' kind of pissed. it was a seeming mystery since he had previously been a solid meal ticket with well-received books under his belt. i even did a little recon with my connections around town. word on the street was Brad concocted a steaming pile of shit and no one would back it.
had i read it? well, i told Brad i had. i read about every 15th page or so and made mental notes of descriptions to bring up in conversation about the novel. i actually like how he writes, so it's nothing to do with taste. they're hard hitting descriptions that bring the story to life. people like that shit... but i didn't have time to read 300 pages of his latest opus. i'd like to chalk it up to pure laziness, but no, i have to fess up to you and confirm that i was overwhelmingly jealous. i have a million stories in me but i can't get them out. ever. let alone select the appropriate verb tense. ever! so that issue did halt me from actually getting into his newest book. i'd make it about 3 paragraphs and then stare off into space pouting that *i* should be making this shit. i should be writing shit down. but therein lies the problem: i couldn't be bothered to try.
my madness aside, the 6 months that brad had been living with me were action packed. and i did love the kid to bits. but drugging and drinking and partying were catching up to him. my Australian Paw-Paw ointment was all but gone last time i checked from him skimming it around his hungover eyes. normally i would have a massive faggot attack over it because it was my fix-all for piles and singed assholes. what? it's true.
looking into the red tub i sighed. too much.
brad had been trapped in the apartment for close to 2 weeks with overwhelming agoraphobia. i had tried dragging him out the door on the weekend and his terrified screams were enough to drop him before we even made it to the door. he did nothing but sit out on the patio floor chain smoking or lie in his twinky nest on his bed swaddled in blankets. we've all been there. i can't point fingers. i spent the better part of 5 months of my life like that. a couple weeks won't kill him. the lure of getting more coffee since i refused to buy more beans [plan a] or me setting up some blind date requiring him to leave the building would get him out.
i wandered out with the empty tub and found his bedroom door open. he was burning coffee scented incense. my incense. jesus, man...
"kid, staff meeting. bathroom. now."
"no|!"
i was on a bit of a short fuse... i dashed into his room and grabbed his ankle to pull him out. hey presto! he had underwear on! better than the last time i tried this. that was embarrassing. well... for him.
"let's go, blondie. we're having a talk."
he moaned yet let me drag him by the ankles. i hauled his legs up and leaned him against the wall. he had to finangle to get comfortable again and actually sounded like he was crying and swearing.
"staff meeting. all present and accounted for. jesus kid, what's the deal?"
"my fucking BOOK! my fucking book.... months. this was it. this was the story i had in me... get it out... on my fucking mind." thud. his head bopped onto the floor. there was little to no memory of the last time that we had cleaned the floor. i'm very sure i mopped it after i barfed last month. yeah. yeah he's fine.
"kid, i know this is fucked up. you have the story, it's done. you can't change that the publisher has a dick up his ass about it. do what your agent said. you shelve the book and start another."
"i'm not a fucking wind up toy!!"
"sure you are. get some other drafts off your hard drive. offer them up to the publisher, see if you can get a delay on this whole business. show that you'll flesh something else out. something, you know, different"
"I can't. i can't write anything else."
"which leads me to agenda item number 2: our current stasis of partying. all the time. non stop. to the break of dawn. we keep that party goin' on...."
"I GET IT."
"get it? good! guess you want me to cancel that order for an 8 ball?"
"no! we're going out for a birthday party tomorrow... and... ugh. ok. ok point taken. and received. and acknowledged. i just... needed to go a little crazy."
"oh for sure. i get it. i really do. but i booked us in to see a therapist this monday."
"wait... us?"
"I told my friend we're a couple and we're getting a great rate. i figure we can get both our shit on the table and dealt with AND it's only half the cost!"
"you're serious?"
"No. dick. i'm not, but we're detoxing. effective today."
"i see weed doesn't count."
"you know, man.... you just can be a little pill sometimes, huh?"
"sensitive. fine. let's have this joint and discuss further."
"no further discussion. i'm lighting this and we're not drinking, coking, tripping or eating anything unhealthy for 2 weeks. i have some ativan for you to take, we order in a few loads of groceries and just get our shit on straight, ok?"
"you've done this before?"
"piece of cake. plus i have this little friend who'll bring us over shit to make smoothies."
"how lovely.... please just light that and let's get this thing going. i need a change of scenery."

coming closer

nothing beats pawing at someone warm watching mindless movies on the couch. nothing. not even getting down to fucky fuck time either, i'm just talking about that close quarters mob up playing with hair and attempting to find the perfect posture to be as close as possible.

i shifted one more time to get my delicious couch mate flush up against my front. snaking an arm over his solid chest i grappled for his right hand to knead in my fingers. he sounded like an over fed rotweiler in front of the fireplace, grumbling contently and melting just a bit more into me.

"your hand and wrist muscles are so tight."
"i didn't realize. just keep doing whatever it is you're doing."

his big hand slipped around in my fingers as i pushed into the skin and really fought to separate the terse muscles. his knuckles were all dents from chipped out pieces of skin and forged knuckles worn down from their original state. some of the tattoos on his hands were nicked and interrupted in places from heavy abuse.

i have to admit, i have a soft spot for visible tattoos and when i first met him i noted the sweeping lines extending beyond his dress shirt. being a buttoned down type came with the territory of being an admin assistant for years. it's too conservative for flashing heavy tattoos, or at least at the places that i managed to stumble into. so it's all the more thrilling when i can meet someone who doesn't give a shit and has a ton in hard to miss places. tho i find it hard to meet guys like that. i'm not a bajillion piercings/blanketed in ink person so those lads assume i'm not interested in them. which is total bullshit. i'd probably maybe think about quitting my job at doing reception at a tattoo studio, i like the scene! but whatever, it's usually just me staring at a hot guy on the streetcar thinking about dazzling sleeves wrapped around me. but.... but i had lucked out. oh well, i mean, this isn't the boy you bring home to mother. but that's my favourite type of all.

we had made a firm agreement not to fuck around right off the bat. the pace had originally been set that it was all contact and we'd get to cum at least twice when hanging out. *i* was ok with it. i mean, holy fuck! i don't have a lot of thick, dark eyed men wanting to show up and have me strip them at the front door. dating be damned, i'll take it.

Anto's Croatian sensibilities short circuited a little when he finally figured out he was a homo. so much of what he had programmed in him had to drop. yet, there were odd flare ups that were stunning to see. you can't escape your childhood i guess.
we had met though work where he was an associate for a major club owner in town. and by associate, i mean the blooded mob that did all the security and other clean up items for the golden goose. i had been over tired and worn down from a couple high maintenance smut stars i had been babysitting for a week. i was either going to break a bottle off in one of their asses or attempt to sleep in the coat room when the club owner spied me up for a chat.

he wasn't even the usual shitbag owner either. rather efficient and knew the game inside and out. didn't do drugs, didn't slut around, but was a solid winner for his financial backers. Anto was lingering around behind him trying to look at the walls instead of the bacchanal of hot men and dancing vibrating all around. the owner shook my hand and made a crack that i should go home to bed and take my boys with me. great, they weren't just pissing me off either. i looked back at them and shook my head. the owner laughed and clapped a hand over my shoulder. told me not to stress so much and just enjoy myself.

i didn't take the owner for a queer at all. lots of fag bar owners are just super wealthy people who know an investment when they see it. you gotta at least be tolerant to be on the floor like this tho and i appreciated that he didn't give me the shank shame eye when i was wrangling whores all night. like trying to keep a dog in the bathtub. oy.

the owner leaned into my ear closely. "this is my associate Anto. he's a new boy so he's been hanging off me like stink. take him for a bit, yes? i'll get your boys into the vip room. you get a break, and me too." popping a none too subtle glance over his shoulder Anto was oblivious to being traded around with porn stars and questionable men in a dark club.

he was eye-poppingly hot. like that tall and thick that you just wanted to climb up and hump until you finally have a blood vessel pop from over excitement. ok wait, let me take a step back and quantify.

i hate saying i find non traditionally good looking guys hot. it makes it sound like "i like ugly guys because i'm ugly too!" which.... let's be real honest here, is fairly accurate. still, what i consider upper echelon hot might not be in a magazine but it was teeth-grittingly arousing to me.

Anto was maybe a hair taller than my dubious 5 foot 9 inches of stacked shit. the main difference is that he was more familiar with the inside of a gym than i am or ever will be. brown eyes turned black in the poor lighting and some plush lips with a solid scar cutting through top to bottom. which causes me some sort of bizarre hormonal reaction further impacted by seeing all the tattoos crawling out from under clothing.

there was a rush intro and Anto seemed stunned that he had been swapped over to me. it's like leaving your dog at a friends place for the weekend. they look a little frantic and dumbfounded that they could ever be left behind.

"hey, did you want a drink?"
"sure... no... i'm working. I think?"
"let's just get a drink."

i found the optimal spot to talk and not feel like you have to be shouted at to be heard. we kibbitzed and he didn't even put on airs pretending he was terribly committed to being straight. he enjoyed being away from all the din of jackassery and i utilized my impressive cold reading skills to drill into him and find a goldmine of conversation. more drinks and he took off his dress shirt to relax in a dastardly tight t shirt. not for one minute did i assume he'd put the moves on me. without even over thinking it it, i just believed that he'd get randy from the drink and kicking back to go out on the hunt. but.... he stayed and leaned in closer. resisting the urge to lean in an bite at his nipple through his shirt i called his bluff and leaned in more. i love getting near someone and getting the sent of them warmed up with their heart beating heavily.

more drinks, more talking, more sussing him out and absorbing as much as i could. finally a hand on the inside of my thigh. i'm sorry, i don't give a shit who the hand is attached to, but put a move on me after months of inactivity and i'll respond. there's nothing tastier than laying into a deep kiss with someone who fancies themselves as a top and spin the dynamic around to make them feel like a shaking bottom. sucking shared breaths out and firm grasps is merely guidance. you just have to see what the reaction is. i do surprise myself with the number of times a top in the moment has a little breakdown and craves being the one on the bottom so to speak.

i don't even really recall how we got home. and it was out of this world for me to ditch clients. i said a silent prayer that they'd make it home and not raped and dead in the bottom of the lake and pressed up against Anto in the elevator. i think i've been in this apartment complex before? maybe? yeah that doesn't make me feel like a whore at all. that surge of personal anger spilled out inside the apartment. my usual polite self dictated that i would ask if there were roommates to mind but instead i just told him to strip off in the doorway while i waited. stunned look, yet he complied like a good lad and we trotted off to the bedroom. sparing you the details it was a little more than rough but nothing that i would say is beyond the intensity of a make up fight fuck.

we had been in a steady rhythm of meeting up and pounding each other with lovely come down sessions of weed and chatting in bed. this was perfect for me. someone who texted me once a day and then would let me tie him up for a while to mack all over his tattoos. and scars. both of which there were plenty to sample from.

Anto finally asked to meet up for a coffee, which i found
strange since i would be put off trying to feel up his cock in the middle of starbucks.
"can we...."
all the scenarios... what the fuck have i been doing? don't call me. never tell anyone about this, i've been high on PCP the whole time and really made a bad decision.
"can we date? i want to actually be with a guy, not all physical stuff you know?"
"oh! really?! sure! jesus, i thought you... well, you know, the mind makes stuff up and... yeah never mind. let's date. we'll get a coffee and talk about boys and then we can go to the AGO."
"The what?"
"Art gallery. if you want to date, that means i get to drag you out to places that you have little to no interest in visiting. those are the rules."
"ha ha, smart guy. i LIKE art so i win."

it... it.... it was kinda nice. i didn't tell another living soul that we were dating, or even any mention of it. it felt like if i said anything out loud it would evaporate. i mean, it had to end, but right now in the irresponsible moment it felt fantastic. even now on the couch i loved resisting the urge to dig into his jeans and squirm around in a sexy closeness.

psycho ex's and jizzy bed sheets

"hey, question: is there any chance you had sex in my bed?"
"No, i have memory foam on my bed. i like getting the extra support on my knees when i'm going down on a guy."
"yeah, well it definately looks like someone fucked in my bed this weekend."
"really? did you swab it? is there a mouldering condom in there?"
"I make my bed in a REALLY specific way!"
"Fuck you are INSANE. No. I didn't fuck in your bed."
"Who did?!"
"Why don't you ask the only other person you were stupid enough to give our spare key to?!"
Stunned i watched him rapidly digest the thought. On through the process of going from who on earth.... to oh god damn it.
"Jimi was here?"
"So, remember when you stomped in the house and i said 'oh hi i missed you and we should talk about something?""
"this is what we need to talk about, I guess."
"sit."
I slid onto the floor into the cup of a pillow pile and invited him to join me. no one likes giving bad news, especially me. thankfully i had essentially chugged a bottle of wine out of panic and stress waiting for Brad to come home. so that lubed me up enough to feel motivated to talk. i did have to caution myself not to run off like a greyhound as i usually do when i'm drunk and chatty.
"I got in from Vegas early..." which was bullshit. i wasn't even in vegas, i went up north to get topped by some older dude for the weekend. i just didn't want to tell anyone in case it was a total wash out. oh hey, no, i do tell people. but it's more to give a cell number and address in case i got murdered. you know, safety first. "vegas" was my catch-all excuse to be gone for the weekend. it suited me fine as most people assumed i was in some porn industry orgy. i'd rather they have that fantasy and damned if i want to tell people when i'm going to sit in a sling for 2 hour rounds doing poppers and seeing if i can finally get a proper fucking.
"how early did you get in?"
"Saturday... it was a write off and whatever i came home super early."

truth? my ass hurt too much to take more reaming so we got lunch, had a kiss in his truck and i took the bus home.
Being an awfully good liar i had made sure to move my car out of the parking garage so it looked for realsies that i had taken off.

"I pulled in and noticed Jimi's car down there and I thought maybe you had come home early as well. Up to the apartment and i can hear the tv on and some bustling in the kitchen so i walked in and screamed 'Lucy! i'm home!' and Jimi was in the kitchen naked and let me tell you, he's kinda gone to seed since you two broke up." nice. way to throw in a diss. that'll solve everything! fuck.
"WHAT?! he was just in the apartment naked!?"
"yeah... and remember last month when we got high on that really shitty e..."
"that was just speed?"
"that night. do you recall how we wound up in a screaming match about how you thought i was eating your expensive hippy cereal and i thought you were scamming my l'occtaine shampoo?"
"ah not one of our finer moments..."
"So THAT mystery is solved. he was eating a huge bowl of the cereal and you know how that shampoo just flutters around in the air with that delicious smell? clearly he had jumped out of the shower after putting a handful into his hair."
Brad was still stunned so i kept things moving. it was an impending crisis and my instinct is to be wordy and take my time getting to the punchline.
"i asked him if you were here and he shook his head no. that's when i, you know... freaked the fuck out."
"what the hell did you do?!"
"lunged at him and shook the shit out of him like a rag doll screaming at him for being in my apartment and gave him a big shove into the living room."

my anger was propelled beyond my normal limits knowing that this piece of shit had gotten me banned from my favourite bar for 6 months due to him fighting with Brad and I. and another violent rush from me came from thinking about seeing Jimi grab Brad's arm so roughly it left him bruised to the bone.

"I took my jacket off and stood over him screaming. it made no sense, but i was clearly upset." that's the dumbed down version.

truth?
"you rotten little piece of shit! how did you get in here? tell me you don't have a key!" a mighty slap across the face. he was suprised by my entrance so i had to ride this wave before he stood up to me and most likely curb my jaw off the toilet bowl. i gripped his wrist in my patented owch hold and pinched deeply. i wanted to break his arm and knock out what few real teeth of his remained after a long childhood of abuse and neglect. i knew if i broke something i'd have to talk to the cops. fuck that.

Back to the Brad Version.
"He screamed at me, "Stop! Stop!! i have a key! i didn't think anyone was home...."
"Stop stop what?"
"uh... stop stop...being... mad?"
"real convincing... did you hurt him?"
"Nothing permanent. Do you want to hear this... or?" god help you if you interrupt me telling a story.
"Nathan!!"
"ok ok speeding things up. He said he didn't think anyone was home and that's why he was hanging out at the house."
"How would he know?"
"easy enough to find out that you're out of town. my car was moved out of the garage... i mean, i obviously moved my car out to go so he tailgated someone into the garage. I think he was waiting to see me leave as well."
Brad looked sick. this whole rant was started with a terse investigation on who fucked in his bed and knew the ending wouldn't be good.
"so he clearly had a key. did you give him one?"
"of course not! never. even when we got back together."
"Cute. so he took the key and got it cut."
"wh... who... was he here with someone?"

Truth?
I was just about to dummy this fuck head in the face a couple of times and saw someone sit up on the couch.
"well who in the FUCK is this?!" ready to get tag teamed i reared up like a trapped animal to look much bigger of an opponent than i actually am. 8/10 times it works. for the other two times you get your ass kicked or you run away.
the new naked boy clamped a pillow to his crotch.
"THOSE WERE MADE BY MY DEAD GRANDMOTHER! DO NOT GET YOUR DICK CHEESE ON THEM! DROP THEM!" new naked was crying and looked scared. ok, so he's on the back burner. the one in my grip was the main issue.
"You've been coming in here while we're gone and using it as some sort of swanky fuck shack, haven't you?! this isn't some villa for you to escape to! you go to the bathhouse like every other stupid whore and you get a fucking towel rental!!"

Brad looked so sad. let's get it over with.
"yeah he was with a guy."
"who?"

Truth? it was The Boy. The Boy being that one boy who got away from Brad. The Boy provided a steamy affair and was the muse for his second novel. which actually was my least favourite that he did. it was too lame and happy. i like tears and Irish famine-levels of despair. Brad wasn't the type to get his heart whisked away so from the assorted conversations we had on the topic i knew how much Brad liked him. he said after the novel came out he spent the better part of 8 months suicidal and incredibly depressed after The Boy dumped him to be single. he was thriving on all the attention from being that guy in the book. no one can blame him for wanting to cash in on it. so The Boy broke Brad's heart and as much as he had fucked, screwed and blew his wad on a ton of great guys, i was never convinced it was ever resolved.

"ah, man.... listen. i don't want to hurt you."
"don't... i'm just going to pull the sheets off my bed."
"want to sleep in my bed? let me tell you, that memory foam really cradles you while you're trying. trust."

DOUBLE RAINBOW BEAR WONDERS WHAT DOES IT MEAAAAN?

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in all honesty, i'm too intimidated to put up an actual craig's list post

i was busy working on a new craigs list ad looking for dudes to let me play with their feet when brad interrupted. "any word on if they're hiring at your friends place?"
"huh? yeah... no nothing yet."
"is there anything i can do?"
"just, uh, just gotta sit and wait i guess." fussing with the wording i hated being distracted.
"please don't let me bug you...."
"oh shut it. you can barely maintain eye contact with me if there's a hot guy on the tv in the next room."
"i'm really worried about this!"
"i told you, i can cover rent for a couple of months. just take your time and find something if you don't think the publisher's going to foot the next advance payment."
"i feel sick to my stomach...."
"i'm sorry i insinuated you'd have to take your clothes off to cover the rent. it was a joke."
"no! not that... i feel sick thinking that all this time i put into the book was for nothing."
"you've been able to sell everything you've penned thus far. so what if they don't like this draft? they're just dicking you around to try and squeeze some money out of you. did you talk to your agent like i said?"
"he's on vacation until next week."
"you didn't leave 10 messages on his voice mail freaking out did you?"
"Just three."
"not bad!" i turned back to my laptop and clicked around some more hoping he'd get the hint and vacate.
"what're you working on?"
"an ad to solicit men to let me do sexual things to their feet."
stunned he sat there looking back at my glib expression.
"seriously?"
"yep. i've just had feet on the brain. i want to get a guy to let me wash his feet, then manicure and file his nails. then go to town on them."
"i... see? i didn't know you were into that."
"THAT. That... that? you make it sound like some sort of pooping fetish."
"it's not common!"
"right. it's not doggy style in front of a mirror, must be perverse."
"see, you get so fucking defensive when someone doesn't immediately get your point of view."
"probably because i have a fairly straight forward view on things and it annoys me when someone that's smart and hip gets caught up in what's acceptable vanilla sex and what's taboo."
"really don't need this."
"you can either sit there and help me edit this or you can make a pot of tea and we can sit out on the balcony for a bit."
"maybe i should write out a craigs list post?"
"or we can take the streetcar down to the strip club and get you on stage for amateur night."
"wow! you had that ready to go didn't you?"
"fuck kid, even if i weighed another 60 pounds more than you, i'd be stripping full time. not my fault if i have an eye for talent."
"i just couldn't...."
"$3000 first prize, you know."
"jesus!"
"jesus ain't got nothing to do with it. you think me giving a toe job is bad...."
"what would i have to do?"
"take it off. and i mean, it ALL comes off. last kid i saw win got his junk shaved on stage and got blown for a solid couple of minutes. THAT'S entertainment."
"no! no way i could do that."
"guess you're making tea then huh?"
"maybe i could help with the ad instead."
"suit yourself." [ahem] "M4M 34 y/o looking for nice man feet to worship and suck...."
"forget it. i'm making the tea."
"no wait, i'm not done!" i raised my voice for him to hear in the kitchen. "let me pamper your feet and caress them with my tongue for hours on end."
"ok i get it!"
"...i'm ok with oral or hj's, not looking for sex just your big fee..."
"LA LA LA CAN'T HEAR YOU! TEA PRODUCTION IN PROGRESS!!"
"you're a baby. what the hell do you do in bed? just clean each other like kittens and pass out after some stoic dick kisses?"
"why the fuck do i even talk to you?"
"because all your little friends are vapid and even you need some teasing to remind you that you're smarter than your twinky pack but you're a big fish in a little pond. i'm here to remind you about the ocean out there."
"good GOD! and you're stoned too! what was all this talk about you not smoking weed for a couple of weeks?"
"I said nothing about opium."
"OPIUM! no, like, for real..."
"ya for real. just smoked some before you got in."
"maybe it's better for you to just get stoned."
"no, a promise is a promise. i said no weed and i'm sticking to it."
he popped out from around the corner to look at me. "Can i have some?"
"god no! you can't pay rent, you're sure as shit not getting opium."
"honestly! again! do you think i need that?!"
"what? the opium or comments about rent?"
"fuck this, i'm going to chuck this whole kettle on you."
"go for it. i'll just put up another craigs list ad for someone to come be my sexy nurse and change my cock bandages."