So it appears that you have turned out to be a cowardly rat-bastard. Your recent ammendment to the same-sex marriage question before the supreme court is the worst sort of delay tactic, while throwing a bone to the socially conservative individuals in this country, a group I never expected the Liberal Party of Canada to pander to. Fuck you, Paul. It’s ok for you to be a greedy, tax-evading, asshole, but god forbid I should want to get married. God forbid I should want, nay, expect, my country to respect the relationship I have with my girlfriend and legally (and secularily) recognize it.

I never understood the right wing arguments, most of which consisted of “No right to gay marriage, because what about my rights?” Well, what about them?! They will still be there. Allowing gay people to marry will not suddenly prevent them from getting married, and it’s been clearly stated that no church will be forced to perform same sex marriages. And hey! Guess what Paul? As a country, Canada is secular. It generally agrees in a separation of church and state. Maybe the bible does say gay people are evil scum, but you know what? That shouldn’t matter. People’s religious beliefs should have no place deciding law in this country. I believe in an absolute of right and wrong Paul, and what you are doing is absolutely wrong.

You know that the Supreme Court will decide in favour of same sex marriages. You just don’t want to have to take a stand on the issue one way or the other, that way you get to play both sides of the issue, hoping that both sides will vote for you. Well your silence and hypocrisy do not do you any favours Paul. Indeed, they paint a loud and clear picture of the type of man we have leading our country. A man who has no integrity, and does not care about the fundamental freedoms Canada has previously stood for. A man who wants only votes and lots of money.

Never in my life have I been so deeply ashamed of, and angry at, the government that was running my country. Thanks for the new experience.

No love,
me

So it would appear that I may have a mild case of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Yay. One more fucing medical issue to deal with, one more thing to make me feel like my body s falling apart at the joints.

It actually makes sense, if I think about it even a little bit. I work 8 hours a day on my computer and then I come home and spend at least another 3 or 4 on my home computer. Because of my CP I only type one handed, so my right hand takes the force of all the typing and the use of the mouse.

So I went out and bought myself a carpal tunnel brace at the suggestion of my doctor. I have tests to go to to determine if I actually have it beyond my own impressions. Lord knows how long that will take though, and the brace may have solved the whole issue by the time I get the freaking appoitment. Ah well. Whatever.

In other news…well, there isn’t much other news. My girl has been here for a few days, so I’ve pretty much been hibernating (among other things *wink*). I started my french classes again at the local college. Although I was sad to see that I didn’t get the same teacher as last term (we were allhoping beyond all hope that he would teach the next level, and we even requested him specifically) I think I’ll learn a lot. Now I just have to get over my shyness of speaking to people.

Fin.

I am a rather shy person. New social situations, particularly when I don’t know a lot of people at the place in question, freak me the fuck out. I tend to avoid these things. So when I got an off hand invite to an overnight party at a friend of a friend’s I accepted, figuring that it wouldn’t come up again. To my shock my friend followed through, telling me the wheres and whens and even giving me a lift to and from the place in question.

So I got to the party. And as usual I was shy and freaked out. There were about 22 other women there – all lesbians as far as I know. I won’t go into the details of every hour &^ every minute, but let me say that hanging out with these women managed to teach me something. Sure I was wasted, they were wasted, but I still learned something. And in all the joking and goofing around, what I learned was about sex, or sexuality, to be more precise.

I’ve always been a bit prudish. Never been one to talk to my friends about my girlfriend’s great ass (and it is great, let me tell you), or joking get flirty or touchy with them. I’ve just never been one to be overly open or gratuitous about the subject of sex. I mean, I’ll talk about it with friends, discuss “techniques” that worked well for me, and speak in delicious tones about the fabulous sex I had last night, but to close friends, when I felt there was something to say.

The women at this party were so comfortable with themselves, with their desires, with talking and joking and making sex something fun. I’ve always found sex enjoyable, and a good thing, but I’ve never thought of it as fun. Maybe now I can. Maybe now I won’t take everything so seriously.

I was 4 years old when we moved into the first and only home I ever had. Truthfully, there had been many buildings and houses and various places that we had lived in in my first 4 years of life, moving from place to place either to outrun my father or to find cheaper rent – but I remember nothing of those places. In fact my earliest memory is the very first day we moved into that house.

According to my siblings, it was by far the nicest place we had ever lived in. By virtue of public housing my mother had been able to secure this 4 bedroom, semi-detached house in a fairly good area of town. We had a big back yard and a basement to run around in, and my two older siblings were able to get their own rooms (I had to share with my other sister until the first of my siblings went away to school ~ or when my brother decided to make his room in the basement, whichever came first. It’s hard to recall.

I lived in that house until I was 19 and went away to school. Not long after my mother moved into a small one-bedroom apartment in another city, and I often felt like I never really had a home base after that. There’s something about going “home” for a visit and having to sleep on the couch that fails to give one that warm and fuzzy feeling.

Upon moving to Ottawa I have moved almost every year. The longest I’ve ever lived in one place is around a year and a half. The first was my residence room, where I was lucky to have the rare privilege of having a single room in first year. And thank god for that. Secret and silly and innocent first girl kisses happened in that room and I can’t imagine where I’d be if I hadn’t had the privacy I needed to come out and be with my first girlfriend. It was on that very residence floor that I met two of my dearest friends – Olga and Matt.

After residence and that first torturous summer back home, two friends and I moved into this absolutely fabulous apartment in on Kent St. Looking at it now from a wiser, more rental set-up experienced point of view, we were the luckiest university students ever. This was a luxury apartment with all the amenities, the like of which I wouldn’t see again until very recently.

After my two friends left Ottawa and moved back home, I was left in a city very much alone (or so it felt at the time). My next apartment was an over-priced, cubicle sized, “bachelor” apartment in the student ghetto. I rented it because I was desperate and unsure of my future finances, and it was the cheapest, least scary, place I could find. And while it wasn’t my favourite place to live – this was the apartment I was in when I first met my girlfriend; this was the apartment I first had sex in. You tend to remember those things.

I left that apartment as soon as I possibly could. I was offered a job and a real salary, and as soon as my lease was up I moved in with one my friends into a “two bedroom” (one was actually the living room, redesigned with doors so you could shut everyone out) back over the river. Not much can really be said about this period. It was a nice place, a stable period of life, etc. Oh, well, the landlord never salted the bloody driveway, and sucked at fixing things, but other wise – great.

Once our lease was up, my friend and I were both making enough money to be on our own, (I’m sure my slobbiness was a factor, lol), and the landlords casual attitude about repairs was pissing us off, so we parted ways – still friends! I moved into a nice, but small one bedroom downtown. It was my first real, alone, grown-up apartment. I would have stayed there had a better deal not come up.

That better deal is where I now am. I won’t go into too much detail, but my current place, another 1 bedroom, is the nicest, cheapest place I’ve been in yet. It is also the furthest away – but you win some, you lose some.

The Kent St. apartment is probably my most favourite of all the places I’ve ever lived. Not because of aforementioned amenities, but because it was where I truly started to live. It was where those friendships formed in residence solidified, where I dealt with my ex-girlfriend and my feelings for her, this is where I experienced the passion, enthusiasm and strength of youth. Everything here was brightly coloured and loud. I still miss that time period – and this apartment represented that.

I look forward to the places I’ll live in the future, and the imprints I’ll leave on them, and they on me. But I hope I never forget where I’ve been.

An LJ friend of mine recently posted an entry about relationships, and one of the more “interesting” (for lack of a better word) aspects of the post and the following comments was the discussion around emotions, and when relationship issues drive one partner to tears, but the other appears (appears, I’ll emphasize) to be calm and dry eyed.

In my relationship I’m the crier. When things are going badly, and we’re contemplating an ending to our relationship, I know sometimes it would seem as if I were talking to my girlfriend about the weather. She’ll say “ok” or whatever responses she has like I’ve just told her laundry is done. It drives me absolutely batshit.

I think the whole dichotomy of criers vs. non-criers is one of the most frustrating ones, because while I can logically compute that “not everyone is emotional, people are different”, as such an emotions-driven person I am always thinking God, how can she just give up so easily, or show such little emotion about us possibly breaking up? (and then the mother of all the faulty thinking patterns) Obviously she doesn’t love me as much as I love her.

Ah yes. What does one do with a thought like that? I know for myself love = strong emotions. Or perhaps more honestly, love = emotions as strong as my emotions when I love someone. I’ve tried to tell myself, that even though she may not love me as much as I love her, she loves me as much as she can, with all that she’s got. Even if her emotions aren’t the driving force of her personality, I can’t fault her for that.

But being in a relationship with a logic person, someone who doesn’t cry when you’re in that black hole, well for me, it’s the ultimate act of faith. She tells me she loves me more than anything, that she cares if we break up, and I have to trust that with very little evidence that my understanding of the world can compute. The only metaphor I can compare it to is rligion.

I even rationalize it the same way:

(Religion) There has to be some form of after life – something!, because all of this can’t be for nothing. It just can’t.
(Relationship) She must love me a lot to do the long distance thing, and want to talk to me so many times a day, and to want to be so cuddly all the time. Plus, a person doesn’t put up with all the crap if they don’t truly love someone.

I need these things to be true so therefore they are. Whether or not my faith is well placed, only time will tell.

——————–
I feel thick today. Thick, fat, ungraceful and ugly. My hair is horrible and I have no idea why I put on this outfit this morning. It seemed to look ok at the time, but now the jeans don’t fall right (the legs are too baggy and the ankles not wide enough) and my shirt is too short. And god knows why I thought it would be good fashion sense to wear my running shoes. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m wearing 20,000 layers of clothing because it’s so damn cold outside. I’ve been desperately trying to figure out how I can go out tonight AND look good. Maybe I should go shopping.

I just love PMS, don’t you? I know that my perceptions are slightly off right now, but the reality is I need to tone up and lose about 10 pounds. I’ve got to follow through on working out, and getting back to counting the Weight Watchers points. If not both, then at least the working out.

This is the year that I will make myself over damn it. I need to have some sort of idea, visualization. I need to tape a picture of some kickass female athlete up on my fridge or something.

In other news, I’m wearing tights under my jeans (I told you it was cold), and it sucks because nylon/lycra makes me want to scratch off the top layer of my skin.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m not satisfied with anything these days. It’s starting to frustrate me. Things are good, but I feel like everything in my life is in shades of grey. It’s good, but it’s bland.

I’m lonely. However, it’s a very specific kind of lonely. You see, I have good friends; friends I care about and who care about me. We go out – not every weekend, but when it rains it pours, and I have plans for Thursday, Friday and Saturday this weekend. Socially, life is good.
But I’m still lonely. I feel like I don’t have any superclose friends any more. I feel like no one really knows me. Mostly that’s my fault. In the last year or so, I’ve just stopped having emotions, or at least that’s how it feels. Nothing super bad, nothing super good. I make plans with people on a regular basis, but I hardly ever call anyone anymore. When I do hang out and talk with friends, I don’t really share.

“How are things?”
“Fine.”
“And things with M?l?”
“Good”
“Work?”
“Same old, same old.”

I mean, it’s all true – all those things are fine and good and the same. I’m boring even to myself. When did life suddenly become so barren? I miss being 19, when I could sit and talk with people about socio-political topics for hours, when there were several people I called multiple times a day and who called me multiple times a day and there was always something to say. I miss being able to assume that I would have someone to hang out with and do something with all weekend, and not having to make the plans a week in advance. I miss having someone who will walk to Chapters with me in the middle of the ice storm, or people who will understand when I ask them to go for coffee “at the regular spot”.

I’m lonely.

A few of those people are still in my life, and I would never doubt for an instant that they care about me greatly, as I care about them. But life marches on and we all change. They’ve changed, I certainly have. We’ve grown older and busier and slightly more isolated in our domestic nests – and sometimes I love it – my life is exactly where I imagined it would be – but sometimes I hate it because I have a penchant to cling to the past, colouring over the nasty bits with faux-goodness and building the past its pedestal. I’m aware of this aspect of my personality. But it doesn’t change the fact that I want a best friend at a time in life when no one really has them any more. Combine that with the fact that it feels like my friends are leaving town in droves – well, I’m at a loss. I feel bored and detached from everything, so no wonder I’m lonely. But I don’t know how to change it.