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An Unspectacular Life, Part 10
05/27/09

I apologize for the delay in getting Part 10 posted. I've been working on it
for a month along with way too many other things around the house, garden and
kitchen.

I've passed my two month mark as a raw foodie. I'm still absolutely thrilled
with the lifestyle and the changes that have and still are happening. The
latest change is that my hair is getting darker as my grey reverts to it's
original colour. Apparently, this is a side effect of green smoothies! And
speaking of smoothies, this morning is the first that I am going to try my
super charged breakfast smoothie. I've concocted a recipe with 9 ingredients,
including 4 superfoods, that will give me 35 grams of protein, 100 grams of
carbs and 1300 calories plus a serious antioxidant boost. I realize that this
info may be a little dull but be grateful that you don't work or live with me
and have to listen to my almost constant raw food commentary.

My attempt at growing food has met with some disappointment. I had started
seedlings in the house about six weeks ago. The seedlings were initially
planted in small containers then moved to the ice cream tubs that I used last
year when they got bigger. I had about 30 tubs, a lot with multiple plants,
that I would lug outside for a few hours on nice days then bring them back
inside at night. These nice days were limited so I was stoked when we finally
got a string of warm days. I took all 30 tubs outside and put them in the
middle of the yard where they would get uninterrupted sunlight. Apparently,
it was too hot and about half of the seedlings that I had lovingly nurtured
and fawned over for weeks withered and died. I only learned about hardening
off the seedlings after the fact when I Googled, "seedlings outside leaves
white". As my friend Carol said: "Mother nature can be a bitch." I re-seeded
all of the fatalities and am impatiently waiting for them to break through.

And without further adieu...

PART 10

I was instantly alert, almost entirely forgetting the romantic Boy George
dream I was having but holding on to the essence (I dreamed romantically of
Boy George all of the time). I didn't have a phone in my room so I threw on
my robe, another drop box score, and hurried down the hall and into the
kitchen where Lily had left the receiver slippery with vegetable oil before
disappearing into her bedroom. She was moisturizing again. I had to hold the
phone with both hands.

I curtly answered the call with a one word question: So?, and let Kevin
explain why he abandoned me far from home when I had put so much energy into
making his night special. My anger had almost completely vanished with his
excitement, almost. His voice was a full octave higher. He had utilized my
cruising tactics and trapped a big hairy bear. His name was Bob. They left
the bar and went to a coffee shop to talk. Kevin said that he had planned on
returning to Whispers but he was having, in his words, "the deepest and most
meaningful conversation of my life". I still wasn't convinced that a good
chat was reason enough to leave a friend high and dry but I let him continue
without expressing my disappointment. Bob was forty-six, more than twenty
years older than Kevin, and had also been married and had three kids. His
oldest was eighteen, my age! His ex-wife was his high school sweet heart and
they married after she discovered that she was pregnant. Bob explained to
Kevin that it was in nineteen-sixty-four and an abortion was not an option in
the small farming town that they had lived in and Bob genuinely wanted
children. When Bob's grandfather died, he took over his feed and seed
business and had two more children, now aged sixteen and fifteen. He said
that he always fantasized about having sex with another man but never acted
on the impulses and instead became an alcoholic. His marriage lasted for
fifteen years until he hit bottom. Like Kevin, he lost his business. He moved
away from his family and fell into the raunchy gay bath house sex scene. He
continued like this for a year until ironically, at a bath house, he met an
alcohol abuse counsellor. Bob dated the counsellor for a year and with his
support and daily AA meetings managed to stop drinking and re-stitch his
unravelled life back together. Bob now works as a social worker helping teen
run aways. Kevin thought that God, a concept that I had years ago debunked,
put Bob in his path to stop him from a similar fate. And best of all; Bob
only listens to country and western music.

Of course, I was impressed with Bob's story of self redemption but I wanted
the slap and tickle details. Kevin was still a gay virgin and I was dying to
know if he had let Bob use the back door entrance. Kevin wouldn't tell me. He
said that it would cheapen the experience which I thought was unfair because
I willingly recounted my handful of carnal experiences to him. After I hung
up the phone, I realized that he hadn't apologized for leaving me stranded.

I went back to my room and tried to fall back asleep and continue my Boy
George dream but couldn't. I was thinking about moving away. I didn't know
how to do it. The thought of leaving excited but also petrified me. There was
absolutely nothing keeping me in my blue collar home town but there was a
sense familiarity which, even though I had to almost daily endure the barbs
of the locals, was somehow comforting in a way which didn't require any
energy or more importantly, balls. I had become used to it. I knew that I
could probably move in with John or even with Drew but I longed for something
more, something bigger.

I had been to Toronto once a couple of years earlier with the Bluewater
Buccaneers for the Canadian Nationals and was completely mesmerized by the
city. The feeling that I got while I was walking around downtown with my
friends on a free afternoon had never left me. I became lost in the enormity
of the city. I absorbed the chaos and noise and for probably the only time in
my life, I didn't feel like an outsider looking in. The buildings and traffic
energized me. The people on Yonge Street fascinated me. Where were they
going? How did they live? Where did they work? I wanted to be one of those
indifferent big city dwellers rushing to some cool cafe to meet friends or
taking the subway everyday like it was nothing special. I wanted to be one of
those people that was so used to seeing weird and strange things that nothing
fazed them. I wanted to see that man that we saw on that free afternoon
carrying a cross on his shoulder up the street barking out bible passages and
say to myself, "Oh, him again. His cross needs a new coat of paint." More
than anything, I wanted to dance in the streets like the kids from, "Fame",
though I knew that the chances of that happening were very slim. I would
someday move to Toronto but I didn't know how or when. I lied in bed
fantasizing about my escape until I eventually, reluctantly fell back to
sleep.

Sometimes, things just happen; like an unexpected thunderstorm on a sunny day
but sometimes, things cross your path, opportunities are presented that have
the ability to alter the trajectory of your life. Such a thing was about to
happen to me. It wouldn't be a crash of change but would rather slowly
percolate for a couple of months. I didn't realize that Laurie's news that
afternoon when I went into work would completely shake up my life. I just
thought that it was kind of cool that we would be using the upstairs of the
restaurant to open a dinner theatre.