“Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last. Wake me up when September ends.”

It’s been a very long time since I’ve trained it into Toronto, although I used to do it so often it felt like second nature. I’d forgotten so many things about riding the train. Like the fact that they keep it so bloody cold it’s like riding in a refrigerator car. I’ll have to remember to find a sweater for the way to Montreal.

I’d also forgotten the almost preternatural sense of not-quite-melancholy that the train brings on. I’m not sure why it has that effect, I don’t think it’s just me that it works its grey magic on. Maybe it’s something in the motion of the train itself, seeing the world wizz by, slow in the middle distance, much faster close to the track. You travel just slowly enough to get a hint of the lives and the stories of the towns and cities you pass through.

And the closer to Toronto I get, it’s just – indescribable. And suddenly the soundtrack on my ipod is “Wake me Up When September Ends”, like the thing can read my mind. It feels like the most profound years of my life, my youth were continually punctuated by train trips. That first trip back to Ottawa after being home at thanksgiving. Seeing high school friends at the station (back when flying was too expensive for anyone for that short of a distance), thinking about the girl, the friend, who had written me my first “train letter” and thinking of the one I had written her. First love blooming on separate train cars.

The grin she broke into that first Christmas she met me at Union, running up to me and enveloping me in a hug. The last train trip to my hometown, a place I would rarely return to in the future. The seemingly never ending trips to visit the next girlfriend while she was in school. One train ride through the province to be followed by another through the city.

The eternally familiar feeling of Union station, the smell of the subway tracks, the vendors that seem to be there no matter how many months or years have passed between your last steps there. The announcement guy who tells you “All aboard! En voiture!”

I think if a part of me is in my hometown, and a part of me in that small room in Stanton, another is definitely on a train somewhere between Ottawa and Toronto.

So Lance Bass came out yesterday, which is on one hand kind of hilarious in the (yes, and DUH) kind of way, and really makes me say “good on ya” and all that jazz. And then I hear about the celebrity gossip douchebag who apparently was relentless with the rumours and seemingly “glad” that he made the guy’s mom cry. That takes a special kind of scumbag. But of course Lance needs to shut the hell up with his “I’m a straight-acting gay. I call it a SAG.” Duuude. Ugh.

In other news I’m off to Barrie, Toronto and then Montreal. Doing some visiting of family, some working and then some celebrating PRIDE! This year I’m proud that my mom didn’t find out I was gay on the Internet, because how much would that have to suck? [Of course telling her myself face-to-face wasn’t that much of a picnic either.]

Never go out drinking on a weeknight with a friend who is on vacation. I am so huuuurrting this morning. But yay me! I made it to work! (It’s really easy to feel good about yourself when you set the standards so low.)

globeandmail.com : . . . but not on AIDS

To summarize the article, the 16th AIDS conference, a conference that had taken place around the world over may years, is taking place in Toronto in August. Stephen Harper will not be attending.

Excuse the language, but Stephen Harper is being a fucking pussy about this. It’s incredibly shameful to me as a Canadian that my Prime Minister, the leader of the host country will not be at the conference. What a bloody coward.

AIDS has ravaged a generation in this country, and our lack of involvement means it looks like the younger generation is falling victim to their immortality complex. Is AIDS education even given in schools any longer? I don’t know. Even in my Catholic school I got taught AIDS education as of Grade 5 (1988 or so) and onwards. It was biased of course, and what we knew then was very little, but at least we paid attention.

Why is this disease so filled with stigma 20+ years later? I bet Steve-O would open a conference on Cancer. He doesn’t touch this one because it has to do with (mostly) sex.

Well FUCK YOU.

I remember. I remember volunteering as a “Candy Striper” at the local hospital when I was 13. My job was to change the garbage bags and water jugs of all the patients in the morning. This was around 1991. I went into one patient’s room, changed his water and garbage bag. He had a visitor – it was likely 8 a.m. on a Saturday. The patient was very thin and obviously very sick. He tried to talk to me, but his words were like mush, I couldn’t understand what he was trying to say. But I could see his eyes. He was THERE. Maybe he was just trying to thank me for my menial tasks, I don’t know. He was aware though, this much I know. I knew it then.

I felt bad because I couldn’t answer him – I didn’t know what he was saying. I left the room to be pulled aside by one of the nurses.

“Don’t go into that room again, okay. Someone else will do his garbage and water. Just don’t go in there.” (I’m paraphrasing, it was 15 years ago after all)”
“Why?”
“He’s got AIDS.”

Sure enough I never went back in that room. And I don’t blame that nurse for her ignorance such was the time. But even then, at that point I had had at least 2 years of (Catholic!) AIDS education and I knew that I couldn’t get anything from changing his fucking water or his garbage bag. He was so far gone – a horrible way to die. I can still remember him today. I wouldn’t have been afraid of him/his room if that nurse hadn’t made me so. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that story.

And then when I was 16 I was visiting my brother here in Ottawa. He got a call from my mother and I knew instantly it was serious. The year before I had been visiting him when my grandfather died, so I knew that look, that tone. My brother asked to talk to me, took me to the guest room where I was staying. The first thing he said was “No one died.” He must have known I was on edge.

[Frankly, looking back on these events that happened while I was visiting the city, I'm surprised I ever moved to Ottawa.]

He sat down on the bed and told me straight out: “Mom received a registered letter today from (hospital where you were born). Since you were born between 1977-1982 there’s a risk you received tainted blood tranfusions. They want you to be tested for AIDS and Hepititas C.”

And that was that. I could afford to cry, I had to figure this shit out. I knew enough at that point to know that if no symptoms had come up by this point I was okay. But still, I was terrified, I called my mom back asking about these blood transfusions. She never knew I had them. At 3 months premature hospitals take blood from preemies and they need to replace that blood. There was a lot done that she was never informed of, and at that point never knew I had had transfusions. She seemed fairly sure I was fine. She also told me that one of my sisters knew. This sister S, at the time was highly emotional and had cried and whatnot upon hearing the news.

I called her next. Now to give her credit she was only 20 at the time and had just heard that there was a possibility her little sister had AIDS. She was a wreck. I remember comforting her, telling her I would be okay, but still being so fucking TERRIFIED myself. And then at the end of the call she asked to borrow $20 so she could go to the bar.

She’d hate me for saying that. It makes her look colder than she is. But I remember that moment, I was so…hurt.

I had the tests taken, and they told me that they would only contact me “if something was wrong.” No news is good news. About two and a half weeks after the test the phone rang and the Caller ID read our Doctor’s office. I was home alone for whatever reason, but I picked up the phone. In that moment alone I had more courage than Stephen Harper will EVER possess. It turns out they were only confirming an appointment my mother had the next day. Exactly 21 days after my blood test I called the office, unable to take the wait, to be told I was “fine”.

But I wasn’t. 6 months later or so, in a theology class they played the Docu-drama “And the Band Played On” about the discovery of AIDS and HIV. At the end they played Elton John’s song “The Last Song” over pictures of the AIDS quilt.

I ran out into the hall at the end and sobbed.

FUCK YOU Stephen Harper, you coward.

It’s been quiet around here. There’s not a lot going on in my life these days. Work’s been fabulous, no complaints there at all, and everything else is just…there. Time marches on, but there’s not much to record, really.

Index – Last Words of Real People

Every few years I stumble across one of these sites and can’t help but waste a bit of time reading through. This time was slightly different though, as I have now read the last words of Kurt Cobain and Princess Diana which I find very weird. I’m used to reading the last words of people from hundreds of years ago.

You are my best friend and my father figure,

And now my boss.

One more male role model shot to hell.

I don’t want to disappoint you. You called me “kiddo” today, and I almost cried. I just — I’ve always wanted that.

I’m going to fuck this up.

Bligbi – 10 Reasons Why Gay Marriage Will Ruin Society Heh.

Oh Boy. I don’t even know how to start this post. I LOVE this book. Absolutely crazily adore. It’s the kind of book I need to use up and devour.

The story itself is as old as the hills – King Arthur and his court. The twist of course (that I’m sure everyone knows by now) is that it’s written from the point of view of the women of the story. The main Protaganist – Morgaine is a really cool character, though she tends to be single minded. I loathed Gwynhefar. Whiny, overly pious twit, that one.

But the best part of the story, in my mind, is the relationship between Lancelet and Arthur. Bradley paints it with such tenderness and slight torturousness that you feel so much for the two of them.

Some passages to illustrate:

“Don’t do that,” Lancelet said…”Promise me, Gwydion.” She was astonished that he used the old name. Arthur pressed his hand, and bent down to kiss Lancelet on the cheeck, carefully avoiding the bruised side.
“I promise Galahad. Sleep now.” (page 301-2)

I could go on, but then I would just swoon into nothing. Brilliant. The whole thing.

So the thing to note before I get into this, is how I came to be in possession of this book in the first place. Anyone who knows me knows that I would not be likely to purchase this book for myself.

The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning was a birthday gift from my brother who is a minister. My brother is passionate about his faith, just as I am passionate about all the things I believe in. We play this game with each other, sending bits of our lives and beliefs to each other in the hopes that some of it hits the intended target. I send him things like clips of Angel and Collins on youtube as an illustration of loving gay men, he sends me things like this book.

I have worked hard within myself to get this far, to gain the self-esteem & confidence I have. Too hard even, to see myself declaring that I am unworthy and poor in spirit. Manning says at one point: “My deepest awareness of myself is that I am deeply loved by Jesus Christ and I have done nothing to earn it or deserve it” (page 25, emphasis mine). Nothing? Really? Well, speak for yourself, Brennan, for as flawed as am, for all the mistakes that I have made and will continue to make, I know that I am deserving of god’s love.

One of the best parts of the book is the addendum “19 Mercies: a spiritual journey”. Indeed, chop off the rest and expand this section and you may even get me to keep reading. Plus, Manning points explores some interesting ideas here, like the idea that meal sharing back in the time of Jesus indicated a desire for friendship, and that such a fact should be kept in mind when receiving communion.

He also thoroughly explores the idea of god as father and humanity as he children. Here is where I started to squirm. Not because I disagreed with the idea, indeed the image is nice. But for some reason it makes me wildly uncomfortable. I’m not sure if it’s because the father/child relationship is one I am vastly unfamiliar with, or if it’s the image Manning paints of humanity as children. Because we don’t get to be adult children of the father – no in this relationship we are as small children, innocent, trusting and without conditions. Again, a truly lovely idea, and oh that it were so. Perhaps I find it difficult, embarrassing even, as an adult to see myself in such a way. Even when I was a child I talked myself out of childish comforts rather early. I have too much pride, although it’s the best metaphor for a relationship with god that I have heard.

All in all, not a bad book. Easy to read, doesn’t speak down to you, and many of the concepts I could get behind. But the ones I couldn’t I really couldn’t and that distracted me and prevented me from enjoying it completely.