Quality Time with Annie

Enjoying some quality time with Annie, the Demon Cat, as she plots her latest scheme to take over the world... 

Poetry Corner

And now for something completely different. (And totally, absolutely, and in all ways inappropriate.)

A worried young man from Stambull,
Found lots of red spots on his tool.
Said the Doctor, a cynic,
"Get out of my clinic!
Just wipe off the lipstick, you fool!"

Confessions of a Political Junkie

You know you might be a political junkie when, even though you have to get up at 5, you still stay up after midnight following the results of the Canadian elections. Perhaps an intervention is in order.

Mags pointed me at what was going on in our neighbor to the North, and the more I looked, the more I became fascinated by what I was seeing. Sixteen political parties! And yet, they still manage to elect an independent! When you have parties that cover everything from animal rights, to legalization of marijuana, to the communist agenda (two parties), to splitting off part of the country, how can you possibly not find a party that covers your beliefs?

The most disturbing thing I saw (which may be a foreshadowing of what is to come in this country,) was the banning of blogging about the election. On some level, I can understand the thought behind this; there have been several examples in our own history of media prematurely reporting on the results of an election, and thereby influence the results, but I draw a line between an individual writing about his thoughts and a corporation seeking to make money and maybe not-so-inadvertently influencing an election. Still the effort came to naught, bloggers on this side of the border were happily reporting results long before the imposed start time.

Can’t stop the signal.

The single funniest thing I saw was the MP or Marijuana Party. They seem to have great turnouts at their parties, er, I mean rallies, but nobody seems to show up at poll time. Of, course, it didn’t seem to help matters that the driving force behind the party, Marc Emery, seems to be serving a jail sentence for distribution.

Peace through surrender

There is a certain freedom in a decision to stop fighting against the inevitable and surrendering to reality. Struggling leads to pain, and although surrender does as well, at least surrender offers the possibility that the pain will start to fade. Such is my head-space at the moment. Why fight? Things aren’t going to change, so why not just accept the inevitable and learn to live with it?

To explain this, I need to back up in time. The path that lead me to rediscover this revelation kicked into overdrive about a week ago. I was reading a cliché-filled checklist on a website on Sunday all about the battle between the sexes. As I was laughing at such inanities as men’s advice to women. “We like your hair the way it is, don’t cut it. Ever.” (B.T.W. If Mags just had most of her hair lopped off to deal with out-of control split ends, why did she end up coming home with the exact haircut that Rene Russo had in “The Thomas Crown Affair?”) I was struck with an uncomfortable insight. Cliches become cliches because they address an uncomfortable truth. They are sort of a hyper-truth, so true that to point them out becomes passe.

It was while I was reading the section on men and women’s take on sex that it hit me, this is what we’ve been going through. Three years ago I had to come to terms with the idea that Mag’s idea of kinky sex was doing it in the living room. She was not, and will never be, interested in anything exotic. I came to the realization that all those sordid little fantasies of mine would never actually happen. Considering that my options were to leave Mags (which I didn’t want to do) and find someone who did find them attractive, or to learn to live without what was really little more than a pleasant diversion, I chose to stay with the woman I love and become a little more normal.

Not to put too fine a point on things, our sex life sucks. When we first started our relationship, sex was something that happened daily, usually several times a day. As time progressed, the multiple go-arounds on a single day disappeared first. Soon the daily sex became weekly sex. Then biweekly. We’re now down to it being something that happens maybe once every three to four weeks, if that. Of course, the next step is already starting, as we’ve started to miss months. I see it becoming an annual occurrence before too much longer.

My revelation was that this is never going to get any better. Ever. It doesn’t matter that my libido continues on as strong as ever, hers has diminished. Again I am faced with the prospect of leaving the woman I love and looking for someone new or learning to accept the inevitable and accepting the pain that that surrender entails. Here’s the problem, even if I choose to leave Mags and find someone new, all I’ll be doing is re-starting the cycle. Also, I’ll have to deal with a completely new set of weirdness other than the ones I’ve learned to handle. In short, better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.

So, the choice is clear. It’s time to lower my standards. Any attempt to discuss my dissatisfaction with our sex life is a sure-fire ticket to a knock-down, drag-out, and above all painful, fight with Mags. I can be guaranteed to be accused of treating her like a blow-up doll, no matter how much effort I have put into setting the romantic mood before hand. Hell, attempts to set a romantic mood often lead to a similar accusation. Sometimes I offer to rub her feet because she looks tired. Ever attempt to kiss her is not an attempt to start having sex, you get the idea.

One of my occasional commenters, Atom, says in her blog, Fairytale No More

“I used to believe in fairytales. Now I don't. Reality hurts!!”

I say, good on her. Given what she’s writing about, I have her pegged in her early twenties. It’s better that she discovers and comes to terms with this painful little truth now, while she’s still young. The longer dreams are allowed to live, the more it hurts when they die.

Give up! Optimism hurts! So much better to be a pessimist and be surprised by the occasional pleasures in life. Love grows stale, friends leave, and dreams die. Learn to accept it. Life is pain, anyone who tells you different is selling something.

Late night rantings

In the end, it’s the fundamental unfairness of the universe that gets to me. I look around me at all the people I know who are having or have had babies. Some are good at the job, and embrace it eagerly, some could care the less, and some are actively hostile to the entire concept of offspring. Yet, Mags and I are unable to conceive, and Mags is totally against the idea of adopting. I love children, and want the chance to be the good father that I know I have the ability to be, yet I will never get that chance.

Then there’s Pigeon. The ink on his divorce papers hasn’t had time to dry, and he shows up tonight with another stunner on his arm. I love Mags, and am (usually) glad I married her, but it would have been nice, at some point in my life, to have had the real stunners interested in me as something other than the friendly shoulder to cry on when the latest pretty boy they were dating did them wrong.

Intellectually, I know that at some point in the future, my drive will slow down and dwindle, and the friendships will still be there. Still, have you noticed the ones who are giving that advice are the ones who have the active sex lives? The ones that regularly engage in practices that would cause the world’s top porn stars to turn white and grasp the furniture for support? “Oh, I’ve tried that, and trust me, it’s not really what it’s cracked up to be…” Yes, but what about those of us who want to find that out for themselves? It fits in the same category as the rich person who tells you that money can’t buy happiness while you’re desperately trying to figure out how you’re going to pay the rent.

Money can’t buy love, but it can rent a close approximation for a while.

I suppose I should take some satisfaction that the quality of my problems has improved. I no longer worry about finding a dry place to sleep at night, and have the time to worry about these things.

It’s the unfairness that gets to me. In the end, this is my latest crisis of faith. The religion of my childhood taught me that the suffering of this life was all in preparation for the glorious eternity of the next one. Why, then, do those that seem evil seem to prosper, while those who strive to do good face pain and suffering? Free will just doesn’t cut it as an answer anymore.

Looking this over, I’m going to catch hell about this one at home once Mags checks up on me, and honestly, right now, I don’t care. (I can hear it now, “You know that sex we were planning to have? Ever?”) I have to get it out before I burst.

Some Daydreams are Nightmares

There comes a time when despair creeps in despite your best efforts to keep it out. Like the lover who you have thrown out many times, and yet keeps turning up back at your doorstep, asking you to take her back. Time and again you do, no matter what the past experience was, each time promising yourself that this will be the last; yet knowing that you are lying to yourself and the cycle will repeat. Djam Karet, the hour that stretches. You are caught in an endless repetition of the same actions, constantly looking for the key to pass beyond the lesson, and having it forever elude you.

The past month has shown me that the coming year will be one of change. Fear has crept in with the despair; fear that the future is uncertain, the only truth will be that life will not be anything like what you now know. Like the acrobat, having lined yourself up the best you can, you let go of the bar and feel yourself flying through space. Hope and faith tell you that your partner on the other bar will be there to catch you, but the fear remains that the other will miss the catch, or (worse yet) not even realize that you are unsupported. You pray that the catch will be there at the end, but there is no knowing. You are in the realm of faith, and it is not a comfortable place to be.

With the hope of the acrobat, I have launched myself into this year. I do not know what will happen, but I do no that I fear. I do not know what this year will bring, but I do know the journey through it will be difficult.

I hope I shall arrive soon.

On Love

Read this over the weekend, and it was so good I just had to share:

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.
- Neil Gaiman

Life Lesson # 7396

There is no good way to tell your wife you hate her new haircut.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

As Mags & I were driving home from the party at Nibs, we popped the self-titled album by Oysterband in. They're an obscure little band from Ireland, but the more I listen to their stuff, the more it grows on me (even if the lead singer's voice doesn't really fit the music.)

The poetry behind their songs sings all on its own, as in their song,
The Road to Santiago:

Carnival is what you dare,
Flesh farewell, the soul goes bare.
Your face is just a mask you wear, but
Masks are hidden faces.
All night long from bar to bar,
The devil is a falling star
He knows who you really are
He walks in hidden places

On the road, on the road, on the road to Santiago
The wind can howl, waters roar
Night comes down & feet get sore
(a priest goes dancing with a whore!
you won’t be who you were before)
We’ll walk that wild Atlantic shore,
The devil walks behind us
On the road to Santiago.

This is what the devil sells:
Broken vows and broken spells,
Voices out of empty wells,
Fire in December.
Burning horses, burning trees,
Steps you climb up on your knees,
Missing days and missing keys,
And dreams you can’t remember.

Holy bandits, band of hope,
Hauling an unholy rope.
Halfway up the slippery slope,
That’s where you’ll find us;
We met the devil strolling round,
On the midnight side of ton, he said:
“Halfway up? That’s halfway down.”
-- well, you don’t need to remind us
You don’t need to remind us.

On the road to Santiago.

Less poetis, but wven more fun, is the last song on the album,
Blood Wedding:

Do you take this woman? I said, “Yes I do,
I love her like crazy & I think she loves me too.
But we’ll do without the family, if it’s all the same to you.”
Happy ever after.
Your mother is a flake, your father’s full of shite,
Your sister says you married me in white just for spite.
Well, a party’s not a party till it ends up in a fight.
Happy ever after.

And there’s my lot, your lot, us two in between –
This is the last time I get married (please God!)
This is the last time I get married.

My brother’s never short of a substance to abuse,
Rum & glue & thunderbird & wizz & special brew.
Any minute now he’ll show us all of his tattoos.
Happy ever after
Nephews are obnoxious, nieces are too tall.
A dozen drunken uncles are pissing up the wall.
Granddad is grinning, but there’s no one home at all
Happy ever after.

For richer, for poorer, for better or for worse,
Now we are married, a blessing or a curse.
Kiss me now & don’t forget,
What you see is what you get.

And there’s my lot, your lot, us two in between --
This is the last time I get married (dear God!)
This is the last time I get married (please God!)
This is the last time I get married.

And the best man’s the worst man, the best man is a beast.
Underneath the table with the sister of the priest.
The way he’s going at it, she’s probably deceased.
Happy ever after.
Granny’s on the brandy, getting bleary-eyed,
Guys I went to school with want to see me outside.
Someone’s pulled the bridesmaid, has anyone seen the bride?
Happy ever after.

And there’s my lot, your lot, us two in between --
This is the last time I get married (dear God!)
This is the last time I get married (please God!)
This is the last time I get married.


The tunes are dancing in my head as I head off to get some sleep.

Here's wishing all a safe and prosperous New Year. And hoping you can remember your dreams.