Yearly Archives: 2007

Thoughts On Missing A Play

In post war England, an immi­nent mur­der is announced in the local paper. A mur­der does occur, but not the one expect­ed and it is Miss Marple who comes to the res­cue to solve the mys­ti­fy­ing case.

Two tick­ets, but I’m on the down­swing. It’s the intro­vert­ed end of my cycle and I can’t meet new peo­ple or go out­side with­out feel­ing some kind of anx­i­ety. I used to live two blocks away from the the­atre, pass­ing it many times but nev­er in atten­dance. I always kept an eye out for a play I want­ed to see — Equus, or Hamlet, or Picasso at the Lapin Agile — but noth­ing piqued my inter­est. This time, the oppor­tu­ni­ty pre­sent­ed itself, Pearl dou­ble-booked with extra tick­ets, and I could­n’t say no.

I force myself to go.

It’s a lit­tle warm to be wear­ing a blaz­er, but noth­ing else affords me the pock­ets for my Moleskine, pen, lens cloth, and iPod. Waiting at the bus stop, I write.

At this time on a Sunday, I’m usu­al­ly wind­ing down. Taking out the garbage, doing the dish­es, fin­ish­ing off an entry, get­ting things squared away for anoth­er week. Instead, I’m head­ing out. For days I’ve been try­ing to write about how jum­bled I feel. There have been new devel­op­ments, both good and bad, leav­ing me with a mix­ture of excite­ment and dis­ap­point­ment. The most I can say is that it makes sense, how I feel, and I can trace every emo­tion to a cause.

The bus comes. On it, I lis­ten to my music but I can’t get in the right head space. Nothing fits. I’m not feel­ing sad, or hap­py, or jad­ed, or ener­getic. I skip song after song.

Stepping off the bus, my ago­ra­pho­bia begins to choke me.

Continue read­ing “Thoughts On Missing A Play”…

They Know I Know They Know

The guys, they tease me. Call me “fuck­er”, half jok­ing, half jeal­ous. I ner­vous­ly laugh it off, but this gives me away. They know they’re right; no direct neg­a­tive acknowl­edges their sus­pi­cions. I don’t want to admit it, but I can’t stop laugh­ing. We’re all think­ing the same thing.

To deny myself is to deny them too.

This Is Rob

Thumbnail: Me and Rob laughing

Rob and Chris took off their coats. Not that it was par­tic­u­lar­ly hot, but the Prince Charlie jack­et does­n’t allow much flex­i­bil­i­ty of move­ment when work­ing uten­sils at a table.

I tugged on mine, but the but­tons on my vest held me back. I had the youth size, you see, a word I like to use more than “chil­dren’s”, where the vest is an illu­sion cre­at­ed by sewing two pan­els to the jack­et. I would have been naked had I had tak­en off my coat as the vest is a mod­ern cuirass, offer­ing a form of psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­tec­tion, and I was left with the option of all or noth­ing.

I made a com­ment about it in pass­ing, and Rob start­ed to unbut­ton his vest, then adamant­ly told Chris to take his off. I had to con­vince them that I was jok­ing before they stopped.

This has come to define Rob to me. A guy who’s will­ing to embar­rass him­self so that oth­ers will feel more com­fort­able. It remind­ed me of Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, pre­tend­ing that he peed his pants by splash­ing water on his crotch so Ernie did­n’t feel so bad about doing it him­self. Sometimes Rob goes out of his way to help you and ends up embar­rass­ing you even more, but his inten­tions make it easy to for­give him. His heart is in the right place, and that’s more than you can say for most peo­ple nowa­days.

Beneath his tough-guy, rough-edged per­sona is the ted­dy bear.

It’s the same way with his intel­li­gence. He wraps his thoughts in humour, per­haps as a way of hid­ing his per­spicu­ity to put oth­ers at ease1. Unfortunately, some peo­ple can’t see beneath this veneer and mis­in­ter­pret it as typ­i­cal male obnox­ious­ness. It did­n’t fool Pat though, who described him as diverse, a per­son with some­thing insight­ful to say about any sub­ject. It was only after Pat used that word that I real­ized Rob is a cos­mopoli­tan who feels at home any­where doing any­thing.

Rob is also one of the few peo­ple who can tease me and get away with it, because he’s just as self-dep­re­cat­ing. I’ll make fun of his size, and he’ll make fun of mine. And while he’s a man’s man, he has no prob­lem admit­ting that he has he vis­its craft stores for his daugh­ter, that he watch­es cook­ing shows with his wife, and that he loves his broth­ers.

That’s the great thing about Rob. He’s filled with con­fi­dence and he has no prob­lem speak­ing his mind, instead of pussy-foot­ing around sen­si­tive sub­jects2. He’s the gen­uine arti­cle. What you see is what you get, and if you have a prob­lem with him, it’s your fault, not his.

That’s Rob.

  1. I think many are intim­i­dat­ed by some­one who can ana­lyze things [↩]
  2. I hate it when some­one does­n’t speak up because they’re scared that some­one may not like their opin­ion [↩]

The Old and Immature

My mom called.

She start­ed about some trans­fer forms, unfin­ished busi­ness in the wake of the divorce, but care­ful­ly segued into ask­ing if I want­ed to take a trip to the States with some oth­er fam­i­ly.

This is how she tries to make amends. She does­n’t apol­o­gize or ask how I’m doing because she can’t. She can’t admit that she’s done any wrong, not even to her­self. Her inse­cu­ri­ty does­n’t allow her to show any vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

I keep my rage in check, but it’s a hard fire to fight. After what I’ve been through, after telling her nev­er to talk to me again, she has the audac­i­ty to ask as if noth­ing has hap­pened.

With a firm voice, I tell her no. No to the trip, no to her, and this caus­es her tone to grow angry. It’s fun­ny to think that she may be angry at me, like a rapist being angry at his vic­tim, but I know it’s not anger. It’s sad­ness, but she masks it with anger, the way she hides her guilt behind her excus­es and expla­na­tions.

It’s eas­i­er to deal with the loss of your only child when it’s his fault.

From what she says, I can tell she’s more wor­ried about her image of being a bad par­ent to her friends, than to actu­al­ly being a moth­er to me. This was the per­son who “raised” me. The per­son who was sup­posed to teach me to be proud of who I am. To not be super­fi­cial. To be hum­ble. To own up to my mis­takes. To take respon­si­bil­i­ty for my actions. It’s a scary thought.

I can read my mom like a book. Not because I’ve known her for so long, but because she’s still a child. I know exact­ly what she’s think­ing, and at the same time, she shows a total lack of self-aware­ness. She still has­n’t learned the impor­tant lessons, the epipha­nies one expe­ri­ences through child­hood, ado­les­cence, and young adult­hood.

Talking to her is like talk­ing to myself at an ear­li­er stage in life.