I made it to Philly in seven hours. Pretty nice, eh? A beneficial combination of mostly dry roads, fewer tractor trailers, no road work, and only stopping twice at service centers. It was just a few months ago I was telling folks," it's a nine hour drive."
Patrice, Mike and I went to dinner at Thunderbird. Two words: chicken cheesesteak.
Then, the bonus... Jon calls. Asks if we want to come over and meets James. You bet we did.
He's amazing. He's both of them, just in miniature. And Michele and Jon are such a good team. I'm so proud of and happy for the three of them. They're a family. A good family.
I'm proud of and happy for Patrice and Mike, too. They're really coming along with the wedding planning and living together. They've been fully living together for about two weeks now, and they're figuring it out. They're very good for each other, and that's nice to see.
Needless to say, life has gone on without me. Was there ever a doubt? Of course not. I'm still glad to see it, though. It makes me feel good. But they miss me. And that's nice, and a bit hard, all at the same time. So perhaps the statement should be life goes on, even if it's not quite the same as before.
It's been a hell of a weekend on the Shane front. It has me ponderous and philisophical.
I stumbled on two quotes today that have stuck with me...
“The lack of limitations is the enemy of all art.”
-Unknown.
and...
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
-Stephen Henry Roberts
In regards to the first... for a long while now, I've verily believed I'm capable of anything to which I put my mind and heart. With time, talent, energy, focus, and dedication, there's nothing I can't make happen. But while I consider myself creative, I don't consider myself artistic. I wonder about the degree to which these two things are linked. If I feel capable of anything, does that render me artistically deficient?
I suppose I do see limitations, but in an economic sense... I only have so much time, so much money, so much energy, so much talent, and so much space left in my head... I can do anything I want, and I'll succeed at it, but what's the opportunity cost? And somehow, I don't think those were the limitations the author/speaker was intending.
As for the second... it's heavy stuff. I'm spiritual, but not religious. I was raised Catholic, and wonder how Catholics would respond. I'm fascinated by the lines between spirituality and faith, between the idea of applied spirituality and religion, and between faith manifested and faith indoctrinated. The name Stephen Henry Roberts means nothing to me, and I know nothing of him. But from a debate perspective, or even a common sense perspective, it's a very considered and strident position.
I shopped Toronto's "furniture district" today. A very gay man in a very expensive custom-made furniture store with whom I discussed a very, very stunning $4,500 bed, noted my wedding wring and suggested I should bring my wife back to see it. I thought surely he was just being a salesman, playing some very curious card with the insinuation. But when I looked at him and said "My husband...," his surprise and bit of embarassment were too genuine.
I was stunned. It's hours and hours later, and I still am.
It's been a long, long time since I worried about being straight-acting, or gay-acting, or acting at all. If anything, it could be suggested I'm too comfortable being just me.
I'll never win awards for being fabulous, but hey, I've come to accept that it must be overwhelmingly obvious upon interacting with me that I'm gay. I really don't know what to make of uber-homo not even thinking I was in the club.
I'm in Toronto, one of the most diverse and progressive cities in THE WORLD... I've moved here, with MY HUSBAND... because we were able to get married here, and have our relationship be fully recognized and protected here, and because being gay wouldn't remotely stand in the way of having a full life together... I'm sure uber-homo salesman didn't remotely realize the new spin he put on the whole thing this afternoon.
I told my 'wife' all about it when I got home. He didn't know whether to be amused or offended.
And so it goes.
vox.com has these questions of the day. They're meant to give people ideas for things to write about. I was browsing through them today, and one from a few weeks ago asked for your take on the ten best songs of 2007. Now, 2007 was not nearly a 'normal' year. I've listened to more radio since Shane arrived than since I returned east from California. So on one hand, I figured I could sort of sit back, think about it, and come up with a bunch of new songs in 2007 that I think merit your attention. But I quickly realized how much music came out in 2007 that I haven't had the chance to take in... new music from artists I really enjoy.
I'm looking forward to having DSL in the condo. A lot. I'm looking forward to spending real time catching up with music, and cleaning up my music collection.
In the coming weeks, I'll look forward to lending an ear to last year's new music from Mary Chapin Carpenter, Maroon 5, Melissa Etheridge, Annie Lennox, Carly Simon, Trisha Yearwood, and Bruce Springstein, and that's just to name a few.
And in the mean time, can someone arrange for that Fergie song to never be played on the radio again? I'd appreciate that.
Karen gave me a guitar. An amazing gift. It was a wedding / Christmas / going away present. I'm really looking forward to it coming to Canada, and learning to play. When I was younger, I used to enjoy thinking I could be James Taylor one day; just a guy, and a guitar, and an ability for my songs and my singing to connect with people. I want "Something In The Way She Moves" to be one of the early songs I learn to play.
So on a Friday night, here's to Karen, to learning to play guitar, to good old music, and to good new music.
Google-ade...
It's been said in varying ways for some time now, by me and others: Google's taking over the world, and I'm okay with that.
I've been taking stock of the situation, and I'm amazed at the sprawl of my digital life. Too much data on too many different machines, too many email addresses, and too many different programs for handling information. The urge to consolidate and simplify has been around for a while now.
Two recent developments are shaping my plans. My new cell phone service has unlimited mobile browsing, and Google's suite of mobile apps is now rather impressive. And Grand Central, which I've been using for a few months now for its voice-mail features, rocketed to the top of my ultra-cool list yesterday when I discovered the full scope of it's telephony features.
Take note: Unlimited incoming calls on your cell phone plus a Grand Central account equals a shockingly cool and ridiculously flexible solution for a U.S. boy living in Toronto.
So the plan is to consolidate email and calendaring to Google and then use Google's mobile apps from the phone to keep tabs on my schedule and my mail while I'm not in front of a computer. I had this crazy notion that it would be mind-blowing if they'd release a mobile app for Grand Central, and what that would mean for my mobile telephony. And then I bothered to look and realized they already had one. It's... just too cool.
So it seems I'm punch drunk on the Google-ade. They certainly seem to be taking over more and more of my world, and I don't seem to have a problem with that at all.
Obscenery.
A preface to today's post... since starting this experiment on the 1st, when I sit down to write, the events of the day have been foremost on my mind. Looking back on some recent posts, I see my continuing tendancy to bring some unknown reader up to speed on the events of my day. As of yet, no one even knows this blog is here, which perhaps amends that tendancy into one of chronincling the events of the day for whatever posterity it could serve. Which takes it right back to being a diary, which isn't what I envisioned it to be. So I'm making a bit more of a concertted effort to branch out and not worry if you, whoever you may be, are up to speed on the play by play of what's going on with me. Those of you that know me and come to read this in the future will already have a good sense of what's going on with me and how I'm doing.
Which brings us to... Obscenery.
"Obscenery" is a word of my own creation. At least to the best of my knowledge. A good number of people say I need to get on public record with it as my own. So hey, this is it.
I coined "obscenery" just before Christmas in 2006. I was visiting San Francisco, Noe Valley to be specific, and staying with my friend Karen. While walking the few blocks from her apartment into the shopping village that's the heart of Noe Valley, I had a very negative response to a Christmas display on a house. It involved an inflatable Santa Claus, inflatable Mickey Mouse, and half a dozen or so additional inflatable pieces. It was the middle of the morning, and they were all inflated and lit up, and my unabashed love for San Francsico recoiled from the sight.
See, the rise of the inflatables in suburbia accross the country was already too much. I'm big on Christmas and outdoor light displays, but I've never seen an inflatable that I liked. And everyone I know, or have ever talked with about them, seems to agree. And yet they've only become more prevalent, which means there's a far bigger and scarier hinterland beyond the realm that includes me and all the people with whom I've ever discussed them.
I lived in San Francisco and the Bay Area for about five years, leaving in the Spring of 2001. But I'd been back to visit at Thanksgiving, and even over the holidays. But not until that morning had I seen an inflatable in San Francisco. It was more than disappointing. It was an insidious infiltration of cheap commercialism not just into Christmas, but an eminent urban sensibility and cultural idealism I'd projected on San Francisco.
As I walked by, I fancied myself a Robin Hood, and wanted a crossbow and quiver of arrows I could deploy into each of the inflatables, allowing they city to cheer as they witheringly deflated to the ground. Then I'd unroll the scroll and affix it to the house: No Obscene Scenery.
Two seconds later, "obscenery" was born. It was a hit that holiday season with my friends and family. People remembered it too, and were using it again this past Christmas with no prompting from me.
Shane and I began to use the word more liberally over the course of 2007. The decorating in a particular house, or a uniquely awful store display, or really bad art; any of them could be called obscenery. We even started to ply it to people, either for their outfits, or their ridiculous behavior, or public displays of too much affection.
Go ahead, say it out loud. Obscenery. It's got a nice ring to it, eh? And it might just be me, but I think it's impossible to declare something as obscenery without smiling.
It's possible that, from time to time, we're tested. Just to make sure we really want things. It's been said that if it's always hard, maybe something's wrong. But this wasn't that. This was me and the universe negotiating a new equilibrium in a new city, a new country, and with a new perspective. I'm trying to change the way I do things, and not get in the way of my own iterative development, and the universe just took a little while to catch on. It pushed back at me for a bit, cause we had a comfy thing going for a long while, but now I think the universe is coming around.
A day can make a lot of difference. Mind you, not very much about it was easy, and boy was there a lot of hassle around some things. But we just kept nudging the ball in the right direction, and kept at it until we got things where they needed to be.
Home phone service is ordered, and will be in on Monday. And I have local cell phone service, with a brand new cell phone, activated this very evening. This alone would have marked considerable achievement given the slap-happiness of the last few days.
But there's more. I researched mattresses. I have two viable options and now know enough to be able to expand my options if needed. And I found a perfectly acceptable grocery store. And found a great little paper and card store where I bought good stationary I can use to send handwritten notes to people.
But there's still more. A bunch of my family took part in what developed into a hilarious chain of email today. I even logged in just in time to participate in it towards the end. I felt good they were having such an exchange and feeling close together even if I wasn't around, because I want to know their group dynamic will thrive without me. And at the same time, I felt good to be included, and for a little while Philly and Toronto weren't so far apart at all.
But no, don't go away all full of smiles and glow just yet, because there's still more. Shane and I had an okay day. Our best day in weeks. He did get an upper hand on his emotional freefall, and found some level ground for himself. He even helped me get the home phone service today when I couldn't do it as a non-citizen. And tonight, we finally had some good conversation. He's started to look for a place of his own. And I know now that he's making enough money that he'll be okay. I was worried about that, and when I asked a few days ago, he wouldn't tell me how much he was making. All I really needed to know was he'd be able to rent an okay place and support himself, and now I know he'll be able to do that. We talked over a cup of teas. We even hugged before he went to bed.
Take note, ladies and gents, cause there's absolutely no avoiding it. Today was a good day.
I spent lots and lots of time before I left last week researching communications options. Home phone, mobile phone, internet, and cable. Dozens of different companies, weighing all the options and learning about how things are different from what I'm used to in the States. I was looking for the Perfect Solution, be it the best of each thing from different companies, or a bundled solution with everything from one company, or some permutation thereof. Now that I'm not waiting on Shane to be ready to make those things happen, it was my primary order of business today. So after reading local newspapers this morning to make sure I wasn't missing any last-minute offers, I go down to see the property manager of the building, just to find out if there's anything special I need to know before ordering. And in one of those stunned moments, she tells me that the only two companies they let into the building are Rogers and Bell. And that the intercom system for the building, by which I'd use my phone in the unit to let folks in downstairs, won't work if I use a VOIP phone service. Now's the time I should tell you that, for a number of reasons, Rogers and Bell were precisely the two big monolithic communications companies we were trying to avoid, and that I was planning on using a VOIP service to make calls to and from the U.S. easier and cheaper for everyone.
I spent the rest of the day researching the two companies I'd deliberately avoided in the first place. Rogers has a miserable reputation, for shoddy service, high prices, bandwith usage caps and network traffic shaping. There's even an anti-Rogers web site, http://www.ihaterogers.ca/. They're the Microsoft of Canadian communication companies. So I cringed at the idea of being stuck with them. Which is why, at the end of the day, I'll go with Bell. I studied and studied again every last option for each service, carefully lining up what I'd order, and planning to use the payphone in the shopping center across the street to call the and place an order. Late this afternoon, off I went. And made my phone call. And found out from a perfectly pleasant customer service rep that, in fact, Bell could not offer me cable service, at all, and could only offer me internet service at the lowest possible DSL speed (512k), and that bandwith usage for that plan is 2 gigs a month. 2 gigs a month??? Who does that!?!?!? I was incredulous.
So now, at the end of the night, all I know is I'm ordering home phone service from Bell first thing tomorrow morning. I'll figure out internet, mobile, and cable in the next few days. There's a one step forward, two steps back aspect to my day, but I won't be deterred.
Most of the day on the Shane front kind of sucked. At the very end of the evening, though, there may have been a glimmer of shining peace. After a round of email today, and conversation tonight, some of which wasn't so good, he finally seemed to be on level ground with his emotions. It was very good to see the freefall abated. One day at a time, one step at a time.
I'm back in Toronto tonight. Crossing over the boarder and settling in for the last leg of the drive, which means the QEW from Niagara around Lake Onatario to Toronto, I was almost surprised by the feeling I was coming home. I already like Toronto, and the vibe, and the ethnic diversity, and the condo, and the building, and being able to take the train into West Bloor Village or downtown.
While it definitely wasn't easy for Shane with me gone, it would be hard to say it's going to be easier for him with me back. I asked him to find a new place earlier in the week, and it was hard for him tonight that I didn't come back for us, or for him, but for me. Part of me really feels for him. Even though he's started to acknowledge that this is a bed he's made on his own, and even though we both knew this was a distinct possibility, he's in denial and overwhelmed. I can't be the guy who's told him he finally went too far and the guy who comforts him over the loss at the same time.
I can see in his eyes and hear in his voice that he very much wishes things were different. It's so confusing to me how he can abstractly want things to be better, for it all to be okay, but doesn't know how to pull that down and let it reshape his outlook, and his communications, and his behavior.
This is going to be a process, and it won't be an easy one for either of us. My hope is to stay centered and not lose site of what I need to be happy and move forward, but to try and do whatever I can to be supportive of and helpful to him. I love him, and am still very protective of him. Finally accepting things as they are doesn't mean I don't wish they were different.
Acceptance. Of things, of other people, of myself. As they are. There's a fine line separating the enormous difference between wanting things you've accepted to be better, and wanting things you haven't accepted to be better. When you've accepted things as they are, the way you make them better is very much rooted in yourself, and things you're capable of doing. When you haven't accepted things as they are, the way you try to make them better is by wishing, and projecting a panic that the hurdles to change are high and ominous, and by setting unrealistic goals.
I'm just fully accepting, really accepting, that my marriage is profoundly flawed and beyond repair. Our problems run far and wide and deep. It is what it is. Many, many people the world over are unfulfilled in their relationships. I'm not the first, and won't be the last. I did my part, and I gave it my all. And it wasn't enough. I loved, and wasn't loved back. Shit happens, and empires have been built on and lost to unrequited love. So, really, enough. Enough with the misery and the moping and the waiting for things that are never going to happen. My failed marriage is not who I am and it doesn't have to define me. It's time to get back to living.
One of the nice things about living a good and well-rounded life is that I already know lots of the things I need to know right now. I know how to establish civil and respectful interactions in a failed relationship. I know how to get life up and running in a new place. I know how to lose weight and get back to being healthy. I know how to see the beauty all around me and to celebrate the great family and friends I have in my life. I know how to look after myself and bounce back.
There's no reason at all that things can't get better starting right away.
