God, I’m fucking exhausted. The day was a mix of nervousness. Partly shy, partly anxious, partly caffeinated. People testing me, people appreciating me, people who call me brother.

As much as I’ve grown, as far as I’ve come, there are still things that are difficult to do.

All I want to do now is write, but I’m too tired. Life is moving at a quickened pace. I came here to vent, but all I’ve done is barely scratch the surface. Oddly enough, I still feel better. I think of calling John, but I hear him explaining my thoughts to me, in my head, and suddenly, everything makes sense.

It’s like Louise and cuts. When getting a cut, her first instinct is that it hurts, but when she realizes that they’re supposed to hurt (what I see as the nature of perfection), they cease to hurt.

The long weekend was just plain relaxing. It’s good to get out every once in a while, although once a year is enough for me to appreciate my clean room, my comfortable bed, and the company of my kitty cat. Getting to know Chris, Aaron’s brother, was a treat.

It drizzled for most of the weekend, but it wasn’t enough to stop us from playing poker in our tents or under the tarp. As can be seen in the last photo, on the last day, the leaves were completely dry under our tents (left side of the picture) while leaves on the ground were soaked through (right side).

Even camping food is easy. Meals cooked over the fire are plate and utensil-free. Cake is eaten with hands, and one feels no more guilty in the company of others than gorging alone.

I managed to get some great shots at night. I still wonder how I’d do with a nice digital SLR though. The one in the bottom right corner came out especially well: the circular lens patterns of my Maglite can be made out in the leaves.

One of the best parts of camping is passing through all the little towns along the way. It always reminds me of the drive up to John’s cottage. The buildings are homely and unique, with so much personality. We passed by an old, working drive-through in the middle of nowhere, and I had to get a picture of the weathered sign. There also happened to be a tiny, pastel-coloured bowling alley, and we decided to play a few games. Funny how the one time we end up going bowling is the time that Trolley couldn’t go with us (he’s never been bowling, and we keep telling each other that we have to go with him sometime).

A growth, a flower, and a lizard. I have no idea what is growing on the log, but I do know that the flower is a trillium, which is the provincial flower of Ontario. It’s also protected, which means that one can get fined for picking it (Any person who contravenes the act is guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $50,000, or to imprisonment for a term of not more than two years, or to both). The lizard is a salamander, and there were a few crawling around in the leaves.

How do I explain how good it feels to be ironing my clothes on Friday night?

An old nursery rhyme proposed that life is but a dream. If Dr. Leary were alive today, he would add, most likely in an LSD induced state, that we’re just an imagination of ourselves. I have a hard time agreeing with either aphorism, but even if they were true, it wouldn’t matter.

A certain gluttonous cat once mused, exactly 19 years ago today, that life can be compared to something found on the dinner table. Perhaps the most famous comparison, however, was by a technically borderline deficient person who said that life is like a box of chocolates, because you never know what you’re going to get. As things go on, one realizes that there isn’t one comparison that’s more valid than another.

Even an outspoken Queensbridge rapper has flowed, “You a killer or a hustler, dealer or customer / Gangsta or buster, youngster or old nigga / A weed head, a coke sniffer / You rich or a broke nigga / Know you all relate to this shit that I wrote niggas / Life is what you make it nigga”, and I tend not to disagree.

For me, it now seems like life is simply a test.

More importantly, however, from here until the end, no matter what, life is gravy.

Went camping over the long weekend. Pictures/video to come soon/eventually.

I was going to write about how I slept well for three nights in a row, but the third night turned into this morning.

I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.

—Robert Brault

I called Pat yesterday. In the past, I’ve always let him call me, since he’s invariably more busy than I am. Even if we try to make plans to hang out, we usually leave off with him getting back to me as soon as he finds out when he’s available next, due to the fact that he likes to be booked a month in advance. This time, I wanted to be the one initiating, because I realized that out of all my friends, I see him the least. Even if we hang out once a month, which may be considered quite sufficient, that’s only 12 times in a year.

The thing that makes it awkward is the fact that I don’t know the make-up of his social calendar. I don’t know how much of his life is devoted to Jen or allocated for other friends. Usually I only see him between events, and he’s always rushing off to do something else. The last thing I want to do is be a selfish person and smother him, especially a person whose time is as valuable as his. This is actually one of the things I worry about, when I know that I shouldn’t (John has recently helped me realize that I overanalyze things). I trust that Pat will let me know when I start taking up too much of his time.

In either case, as usual, he’s going to call me back to have dinner at the Black Tomato. I had to recommend that we go, because I always enjoy myself when I patronize that restaurant. I also chose to have a meal instead of doing something else, because food is one of Pat’s hobbies. He treated me the last time we had dim sum, when it was actually my turn, so I’m hoping he won’t put up a fight when I go to pay for the bill. In addition to the great fusion food, I’ll have the chance to order a glass of Wynns Coonawarra Estate cabernet sauvignon which I haven’t had the pleasure of tasting for a few months.

A chance to catch up, a chance to get to know Jen better, a chance to try out some new food. It’s going to be good.

Many things to say, but this is the most relevant right now. This also happens to touch on almost every aspect of my life, and I find myself considering things from a gigantic range of angles. Unfortunately, I can only briefly touch on each of them, in an effort to stave digression.

The first and most important goal I’ve ever had was to gain a healthy amount of confidence by the time I was middle-age. This was so that I could enjoy at least half of my life as a strong individual. I set this goal because I realized that I had an unhealthy amount of self-doubt, which contributed to a depressing life and lifestyle, as well as unrealized potential.

This meant fighting off the insecurities that were bred into me, which amounted to most of my childhood. It hasn’t been easy in the last couple of years, but it’s worked. Every six months, I’d realize how much I grew. This time, I realize that I’m there.

I finally feel like I’m in control of my life. I speak to people differently. I think differently. Instead of avoiding conflict, I can meet it head on. For me, this was probably the most difficult thing to do ever imagine doing. I would plan my life around such an avoidance, from my friends to my relationships. I had a conflict phobia, an illogical fear of a specific situation, but I fought against it and won. In psychology, people overcome their phobias by remaining relaxed in the face of their fears (because one cannot mentally be relaxed and scared at the same time). I had the opportunity to do this, by placing myself in uncomfortable situations over the last four months, and approaching them cerebrally at the same time.

I also have to say that a major contributing factor to the success has been going through the D/s lifestyle with Loo. Having a submissive as experienced as she was, placing her trust in me, gave me a significant boost in confidence. She once pointed out to me while watching Secretary, that Edward Grey’s confession to Lee Holloway about previously being shy was a very accurate detail. In Loo’s experience, many put in a dominant position are able to break out of their shells, and I never understood or believed her until now.

So now that I’m here, where do I go? I’ve accomplished the biggest goal in my life, something I’d planned on working on for the next ten years, and it feels like I’ve lost a major part of my reason for living. I feel like an astronaut who dreamed of landing on the moon as a child, only to accomplish the goal and realize that he had never dreamed of anything else.

I suppose I still have the rest of my life to decide.

This is going to be one of those stream of consciousness things that I haven’t done in so long. I find myself noting what to write about next, and even though it’s a great way to get out the things I want to say, I’m too focused on a single topic to really feel satisfied.

Actually, I’ve mostly been too busy to write lately, a problem I never thought I’d have. When I’m not too busy, I’m too tired. Been golfing, cleaning, getting my hair cut. Speaking of which, I requested a male “stylist” the other day, as opposed to Josee. I wasn’t sure if this would be a rude thing to do, but I’ve spoken to a lot of people, women included, who believe that male hairdressers do a much better job than their female counterparts. It turns out that quite a lot of people go exclusively to male dressers. I never would have understood why (it seemed like a rather silly thing to me) until I had my hair cut by one. I only needed to tell him that I wanted a trim, and he did a perfect job of it, something that Josee needed about three appointments to figure out.

Today is poker night at Pat’s. I’ve never played Pat before, but I’m scared to death of facing him alone. As a socialite, he can read people like a book, and I’m sure he’d quickly pick up on any tells that I have. Just means that I’ll have to play extra tight, and throw in an occasional bluff to throw him off. Actually, it’s limit hold’em so I can afford to play a little more loose (but still not as greedy as Darren).

Hoping to talk to John tomorrow. He’s been moving around cities, and only settled into a steady summer apartment this week. I tried to catch him up on things earlier, but there just wasn’t enough time.

Part 3 went well enough that it doesn’t even deserve it’s own entry. All I can say now is that I’m cautiously optimistic.

It’s a new week, and I finally feel like myself again. The only time I have an unstable mind is when I wake up between two and four every night. All the thoughts I push to the back of my mind come flooding back, and I have trouble falling asleep for another hour or two. Other than that, I’m okay, more or less. All it took was a housewarming party and a weekend of no worries.

Trolley and I started preparations on Friday. We were expecting 14 people (with three not drinking) and we got that exactly — Pat, Jen, Jeff, Pita, Mike, Iain, Aaron, Karen, Kat, Sebastien, Eric, Jen, Trolley, and I. In all, we had four bottles of Keith’s (left over from poker night last week), three bottles of wine, a 12 of Corona, and two 5-Liter Kegs of Grolsch. In addition to this, Aaron ended up bringing six more Keith’s, while Mike gave me a mickey of Smirnoff, and Pita supplied a 12 of Blueu (the distinguished Quebec variant of Blue). A few major drinkers powered through the alcohol, and while we initially believed ourselves to be overstocked, we ended up with only a few Blue and the wine.

It was a pretty good mix of people. While I was grilling burgers on the new barbeque, people were mingling, hanging out on the couches, catching up on hockey on TV. Some were even soaking up the sun in my little back yard/patio, which has an accommodating set of stairs and a few lawn chairs. There wasn’t as much segregation, and I think that Aaron, Trolley, and Pat helped blend the two (and a half) groups a bit. For a successful party, I’m always sure to have all three in attendance. To my surprise, we all ended up playing some four-player Gamecube games towards the end of the night, something I wasn’t sure that everyone was interested in.

All-in-all, it was a good party, even if I was too busy running around, making sure everyone was well fed and thoroughly drunk, to hang out with my guests. I even got a few housewarming gifts. Trolley and I built the barbeque Pat gave us in time for the party, and Iain got me a nice set of crystal low balls (which have a nice weight to them, but need to be hand washed). Aaron gave me a set of six solar-charged patio lanterns that really make my yard stand out from the rest. I couldn’t ask for more.

Pita crashed that night, but not before I got him burned for the first time. I think his mind was a little too rigid, and he was analyzing things a little too much to be able to relax and enjoy it. He stayed for the rest of Sunday, and we played the old Gamecube games we used to enjoy back when we were still living together. I had such a good time, that I was able to really forget about everything else that’s going on right now. It was like a little gettaway in my own house.

I needed this weekend.

Do you remember your first time?

It was her first time too. Her face contorted, a regretfully painful look, but quickly relaxed as her eyes rolled back. You were scared when she bled, but she begged not to stop. How strange it was to be so close to someone, so face-to-face. You thought you knew what intimacy was, until you were inside her and kissing her lips simultaneously. Shhhhh, they’re right underneath us. You never imagined it’d feel so hot.

Do you remember her first time? It was safe because her sister was busy enough with her own boyfriend. You went beneath her skirt, recalling how distracting such a simple piece of pleated, plaid material could be when walking behind her in the hall. She made no sound, and you began to doubt whether she was comfortable anymore.

Do you remember her first time? It was at the end of summer, when the days were getting shorter. You had the windows open, and wafting through the room was the smell of healthy trees and sunset air. Even though the breeze was cool and dry, she was hot and sweating against you on her brother’s bed. You were listening for the swing and slam of the back screen-door, but all you were thinking about was how good it felt to finally touch her bare, sticky skin. There was no nervousness anymore. She trusted you with devotion, as you guided her through her blossoming sexuality.

Do you remember her first time? It was your first time too. You had always wanted to save this for marriage, but you were both caught in the moment, and her dirty mouth wouldn’t stop prodding you. She once told you how she had always imagined being tied up, someone taking this from her by force. It was too late now, and she wanted this as much as you did. Her screams were almost rudely loud in your ear, but there was indication of pain in her voice. Afterward, she had take a moment to collect herself before she could speak, making a remark about how comforting it was to still feel you inside her.

They say that we always remember our first time.

But do they remember you?

New developments have left me with much to say. My mind feels like it’s going 80 thoughts per minute. Chaos proves to be a useful writing tool. For now, rest.

I haven’t cried in a while, and I think it was just building up, which would explain why I felt so much better afterward.

I just kept working. One can be sad, stressed, worried, even to the point of tears, and carry on with the rest of daily life. Crying is just a physical reflex of a state-of-mind.

Two people may have noticed, but neither of them said anything.

Thank god I don’t have to deal with the bullshit of hiding this from someone.

Sometimes I think I see the letters on my desk rattling to the bass, but when I look, the letters are still. I suspect that my eyes are twitching.

It was a heavy day. I’m too scrambled inside to eat. I know I’ll be hungry first thing in the morning.

“Malice”, he used. Not great, but good, and certainly more than I deserve. I’m still paranoid.

Through everything else, someone is testing me. Testing my new found serenity. Testing the very thing that I’ve been fighting against, for the last few years. The only person who can bring me to a desire for physical manifestation of my raging frustration (aside from people who smoke around babies). On the bus, I uncontrollably pictured wrapping my fingers around her neck, and strangling her. I know that that’s bad. Sometimes my own thoughts scare me. I’m not a violent person.

The world is a twisted, twisted one-act.