Winter solstice

Winter solstice, finally. Last night it rained steadily, heavily at times. The cold, sloppy sound of hissing tires below permeated my dreams. The heavy, overcast skies made the darkness more complete. When I left my building just before 8 there was only the slightest hint of purple in the near-black skies. The fierce glare of halogen headlights was overly aggressive before my first coffee. It was too wet to walk. Anyway, my feet are swollen for some unknown reason, which makes walking more difficult.

There was a new bus driver this morning, a handsome younger guy who was as congenial as the many other ones I have come to know. The streets were almost empty on this holiest of days, as was the bus itself. It is usually close to full but today there were only 10 other passengers. In one way it looked a bit sad, as though we were the only ones who hadn't won a reprieve from working, but I tried to see it as a special day free of the regular crowds and pressures.

I never take annual leave during the Christmas season. There is always a heavy competition to get it and I have no special need for it. I have nowhere to go and sitting at home watching the rain in the gloom of my apartment has no special appeal. I could do more work on my tulip window but I need a break from that; my hands and back are already suffering from the long hours I've spent on it. The phones at work are quiet, the lights are bright, the atmosphere here is peaceful and everyone is in a good mood. There's no better place to be.

There is another reason for me to celebrate solstice this year. It has been 137 days since my last fall, which was on August 6th. It's the third longest stretch without a fall since I began recording my falls six years ago. To break my record, 213 days, I'd have to stay upright until the Special Winter Olympics begin in March, which would feat worthy of a gold medal in and of itself.

My current project, a 200-piece tulip window for Tulip, my friend on the Sunshine Coast, is coming along. I have 110 pieces soldered together and another cut and ground. It is taking longer than I wanted and having a worse toll on my back than I'd like. Yesterday I went to the supply store and spent $200 on more glass, a glass cutter and two grinder heads to make the job easier. I have some large complicated shapes (especially the clear background pieces along the top), some brittle glasses and add-on foil overlays that are really slowing me down, but I am pleased with it so far. The fact that it will be housed in a friend's home and be "special" to him makes it worth the extra effort.

I love doing projects for friends, or anyone really who has an idea he or she wants realized in glass. I like involving them in the project from start to finish, educating them on the process, using their input in the design and bringing them with me to help select the glass I will use. That way it means a lot more to them.

I am often asked why I never tried to do stained glass full time. I did try once, shortly after I arrived back to Vancouver from Toronto in the mid-90s. There are several reasons why it didn't work for me. I miss the socializing of talking to others at a workplace, even just on the phone. I hated the lack of separation of work and home spaces; there was always an unfinished project staring at me when I tried to relax. I started spending more money in bars and restaurants both because I was lonely and because I needed to get away from my work. It was also hard to makes ends meet. I didn't like marketing myself and when I did, I often took on stupid jobs for stupid clients who more often than not backed out of the project when some other consumer product caught their eye.

Today is a case in point of what I used to deal with on a regular basis. Jeremy, one of my students who is better at website design and marketing, gets lots of public clients knocking on his door. He sent a woman over to me that he was too busy to help. She said she had a Tiffany-styled lampshade that needed repair. The fact that she couldn't describe what was wrong with it told me that it was likely to be trouble.

I returned her call and asked her to make an evening appointment last week to let me assess the damage. She suggested a couple afternoon times before I finally got through to her that I have a regular day job that I am not going to quit for her sake. We finally agree on this afternoon (Sunday), but she couldn't exactly tell me when because she would have a toddler with her and she was trying to squeeze my appointment in between different cultural and social events. That gave me a bad feeling, but it was worse than I expected.

She arrived around 2 with a large box in her arms that contained the wounded lamp. She said she only had a few seconds as her husband was alone in the car with her toddler. I resisted the urge to ask her if her husband could not be trusted. I told her it would take more than a few seconds to do an assessment. She asked if she could just leave it with me. Not unless I will be doing something with it, I made it clear.

I opened the box while she glanced anxiously at her watch. It wasn't a Tiffany-styled lamp at all, just as I suspected. It was a simple panel lamp with 16 sides forming a cone and another 16 pieces forming a vertical skirt. It was a cheap Mexican job, made inappropriately with crap glass and soft lead came, as most of them are. Every second panel had decals glued onto it, a sort of faux-stained glass made for those who cannot tell silk flowers from real ones or copper from gold. She hadn't even bothered to take the light bulb out.

None of the pieces were broken but the entire 16-piece skirt needed to be melted off and rebuilt because the soft lead had pulled apart, as it usually does. I explained that I do not use lead came and would have to rebuild it a different way using copper foil. I tried to explain that Tiffany invented the copper foil method so it would be strong enough for lampshades, because lead came, like hers, never is. She really wasn't interested. She asked me how much. I offered her a ridiculously low price of $35. She balked at the price, saying she really had no place for the lamp anyway. She just wanted me to buy it off her hands, probably for a price far greater than what it was worth, but I made it clear I had no place for it and didn't want it. Guess I'll just have to give it to the Salvation Army, she moaned. I would have suggested my building's dumpster but being Sunday I knew it would already be overflowing. I gave her back the box and ushered her out to her car, leaving her to deal with her problem on her own.

Nushki to Quetta, Day 2

The ride from Nushki to Quetta proved to be the lowest point of my year-long trip and perhaps the lowest point of my 55 years so far. I have never felt more adrift, more helpless, homeless and without purpose. By morning I was extremely cold, weak and hungry. It took all the effort I could muster to face my frozen environment, to get up and repack my clothes in my panniers, to untie the strings of my sleeping bag and roll it up and to take off my frozen wheel, to pry off the tire and patch the leak in my inner tube with bare, frozen fingers. The ground was white with frozen dew and the air stung with the cold. A few locals crossed the fields around me setting off for their daily chores. They didn't seem to notice me sitting on the ground.

I was putting the tire back onto the wheel when Carlos returned for me. Kate and Stephen had left for Quetta without him so they wouldn't have to wait for me. Their complete disregard for my well-being did not surprise me, but I hated them just a bit more. Carlos, on the other hand, was full of compassion. I would have struggled back to the road without his help somehow, only because I had no other choice if I was to survive, but his warm arm and encouragement gave me badly need strength.

It took a couple of tries before I could straddle my bike and set off. At first I wasn't able to go any faster than walking speed. Carlos stayed close by me, leading the way and looking back over his shoulder every few seconds. Half an hour later we came across a roadside café and stopped for a hot tea. We sat there for another half hour while I warmed up. He told me that none of them had had much sleep that night. Someone had made a space for them in a courtyard but the locals came around to meet the visitors and to sing and drink until the wee hours of the morning.

My strength slowly returned as I warmed up. I still had to take it slow but with some bread and other food that Carlos had saved for me I was able to pick up speed as the day went along. He was always in front of me, gradually getting further ahead as his confidence in me grew, but always in sight. I was still frail, feeling "lost" without a home or purpose. The warmth and care in his eyes told me to have faith. I took each hour one at a time, telling myself to keep moving if only because Carlos wanted me to. I could have fallen in love with him if I had had a little more strength.

By late afternoon we were approaching Quetta, the terrain was flatter and I was feeling stronger. Carlos was riding about 3oo metres in front of me when it happened. I saw two youths chase after him, hoping to catch him to steal his belongings. When they realized he was moving too fast, they grabbed rocks and hurled them at him but he was out of their reach by then. They shrugged and laughed it off.

Then they saw me coming. I was less than 200 metres away. They grabbed the biggest stones they could fit into their fists and readied themselves for the attack. Our group had frequently been greeted with a shower of stones thrown by pre-pubescent children as we entered each town, but these youths were much larger. They were perhaps 16 years old and standing right at the side of the road only a metre from where I would pass. They clearly meant to harm me.

My heart was pounding in my throat. There was no point turning around. I had no place to return to and they would wait for me to pass this way again. If I waited long enough Carlos would come looking for me and they would attack him again. I had no choice but to continue.

Thankfully I had enough strength by this point to accelerate to a good speed. They braced themselves in preparation, but about fifteen metres away from where they stood I swerved off the road to pass behind them. I knew they would step back instinctively, and step back right into my path, but I gave them just enough time to step back one more time to get out of my way. Unfortunately for them, there was a steep embankment at that point and they both fell off the road. I swerved back onto the pavement and kept pedaling hard. A few seconds later they had scrambled back up to the road and I saw the rocks they threw bouncing along the road beside. I made it to the next corner and disappeared from their view.

The edge of Quetta was only a couple kilometres further. I found Carlos there, waiting for me anxiously. We found a local hostel where Kate and Stephen had already booked a room, and rested there for a week while we waited for Coen and Vincent.

18 yrs ago: Nushki to Quetta, Day 1

18 years ago this month: Nushki to Quetta, Day 1:

Two days after sleeping on the desert floor in the western province of Pakistan, Baluchistan, under the "magic" willow, surrounded by 3 metre-long vipers (see Dec 9, 2008 entry), we reached the city of Nushki. Coen, one of the two Dutch guys who had accompanied me from Istanbul to this remote area, fell ill with amoebic dysentery just as we arrived. We were all alarmed seeing him disoriented, trembling with weakness and losing his balance. He must have drunk something that the rest of us hadn't. There was no way he could continue with us so Vincent, his Dutch companion, stayed behind to look after him during his treatment and recovery.

The rest of us continued to the capital of the province, Quetta, two days' ride away, where we would wait for them to rejoin us. There were four of us now, Kate and Stephen, the two Brits who had joined us in Iran, Carlos, a Spaniard we had met cycling on the same road the day before arriving in Nushki, and me. The Brits were selfish pains in the ass, especially Kate, and we could barely stand to speak to each other, but Carlos was kind and friendly. I considered staying behind with Coen and Vincent but I didn't have enough money. My wallet had been stolen in Iran and I needed to get to a bank in Quetta as soon as possible.

The road to Quetta was in better shape than what we had been used to. We climbed out of the valley where Nushki was into a high desert. I didn't have amoebic dysentery but I felt myself becoming ill again. My stomach rumbled and I felt weak. I began to fall behind my companions. Then my front tire developed a slow leak. The others disappeared from view while I stopped to pump it up. It wasn't safe to be alone in this area so I didn't linger to take the inner tube out and patch it.

I assumed the others would wait for me to catch up. They did wait, but each time they saw me in the distance they took off again before I could reach them. The leak was worsening and I had to stop more frequently. I was holding them up. The Brits were probably pissed at me, but they obviously didn't care why I continued to fall behind. The daylight was waning. I assumed they would soon stop at a nearby town to spend the night but Kate didn't see any place to her liking so they continued riding into the night.

The road climbed through a high pass that reached a height of 1900m. The temperature fell to freezing and I was growing sicker and weaker by the hour. The others no longer waited for me as it was too dark to see me approaching. It was definitely too dark to change my tire. It was difficult enough to pump up it up, and that I had to do every couple kilometres by that point. Somewhere in the pass I heard what I assumed to be Pakistani soldiers shouting at me. They were in some fortified post in the hills above me. I couldn't see them or understand what they were saying. I wasn't sure if they had night goggles and could see me, or if they had just heard me. I felt it was best to continue as I wasn't sure what else to do. I had no protection being alone. They might have robbed or raped me if they had stopped me on the road. I half expected them to shoot at me but the shots never came.

I glided down from the pass and after a few stops to pump up my tire, I ran into the other three waiting for me by the side of the road on the outskirts of a village. They were considering whether or not it was safe to stop there for the night. Kate didn't like it as there were only adobe buildings but it was already 10 pm.

My insides had turned to raunchy liquid and I had to could not hold it in any longer. I left Carlos holding my bike while Kate and Stephen argued. There was no vegetation to hide behind so I aimed for a cinder-block building set in a field in the opposite side of the road from the town. In the middle of the far side, sheltered from the freezing wind and view of the road, I squatted and emptied the contents of my bowels, which flowed like steaming, putrid lava over the frozen ground. I did my best to clean my ass with desert sand and then hobbled back to the other three.

They had come to agreement that the next town may be still an hour away and that they should look for a place to sleep in the town. There were obviously no hotels. It would take them a while to ask around and find a place to sleep, and that once settled the locals would want to stay up and talk and drink with them. I was not up to that. I was dead tired and trembling terribly with cold and sickness. I could go no further. The best thing to do would be to sleep in the field, sheltered by the wind on the far side of the cinder-block building. I told the others where they would find me in the morning and rolled my loaded bike with its flat tire off the road and across the frozen ground.

I had emptied my bowels at the mid-point of the far side. There was just enough room to lean my bicycle on one side of the mess and to roll out my sleeping bag on the other side. I was concerned that some local might try to sneak off with my bike so I stretched the strings at the bottom edge of my sleeping bag over the puddle of sewage and tired them onto the front wheel of my bike. My bag was only good to freezing. The night was much colder than that so I took all my clothes out of my panniers and did my best to pad them around me. I climbed in and pulled the top of the bag tightly over my head with a prayer that I'd still be alive the next morning.

Back to the cutting board....

I feel like apologizing after my last two rather negative entries. I am not usually a negative person but writing is one way of exorcizing negative feelings that occasionally torment me. We commonly hear people say that writers and artists need to be tormented in order to bring out their emotions and creativity. That doesn't work for me. After writing out my negative feelings in rough draft I have purged them and have no desire to continue wallowing in them long enough to polish what I have written.

I am being good staying home this week, after last week's hedonistic indulges of eating out almost every night. I ate pizza with Fred while we played Settlers of Catan on Monday. I took Stitch out for a birthday dinner to Kadoya on Tuesday, ate out at a Singaporean restaurant with friends on Thursday and at an Italian restaurant with friends visiting from Toronto on Friday. Two nights the portions were too large and my friends gave the leftovers to me. Then there was the pot luck dinner on Saturday where everyone brought too much food. My friend Jazzy is leaving for India so he gave me several days' worth of vegetarian risotto to go with my leftover salad. I've been living off the spoils since then.

I have stayed at home to work on the first of two windows for Tulip, my faerie friend on the Sunshine Coast. He has transom windows in his two bedrooms, each 51 cm high by 107 cm long, and for each I proposed a row of mature tulips, opened wide as though they are about to fall apart. Some are leaning or falling over. They are done in shades of red, yellow and streaked orange. I completed the pattern for the first window on Sunday and Tulip gave me the go-ahead without seeing it. I have been plodding ahead a few pieces each night and now have 41 of the 202-piece project cut and ground, 30 of them already soldered together. I need some glass supplies, a new cutter and grinder head, which I won't be able to pick up until Saturday.

The last windows I made were completed for a client in May. I've had no projects come my way since then until recently. Besides the two windows for tulip, I have the go-ahead for another large window (100 cm wide by 95 cm high approx) for the "Chicken Ranch" (Wallowa's home) in Portland. It will a features rooster and a couple hens in an outdoor pen. I am waiting for Wallowa's husband Bunny to complete the window frame so I can get the exact dimensions.

On Saturday my friend Yves asked me to design a window for the door to his guest room, 52 cm wide by 165 cm high, probably a tropical forest scene. Jeremy, my former student, has also forward a client to me who wants me to repair a Tiffany-styled lamp. She will be bringing the wounded shade by for my appraisal on Sunday afternoon.

When it rains it pours.

Pinocchio wanted to be like other boys

Last night my friend Yves picked me up and drove me to see his new place in Yaletown. He let me out at street level so I wouldn't have to struggle up the ramp in the underground. He left the car parked illegally while he attempted to help me up the ramp to the front door of his building. I insisted on doing it myself and sent him back to the car, but he came back to let me in so I wouldn't have to stand outside for 5 minutes until he returned. No, I said, it's not too cold and I prefer to stand. He had the idea that I couldn't stand that long.

Inside he insisted I not take my shoes off because it would be difficult for me. Later, he offered to help me stand when we made ready to leave for a pot luck dinner at Jose's place. He asked if I needed help getting into the car. We parked a block away and I struggled a bit up the incline to the front door of Jose's building. He watched anxiously, not knowing whether to intervene.

Yves wanted to hang my coat for me, but I hung it myself, pretending not to see him standing there with a hanger as I chatted with Jose. I settled in on Jose's couch. Yves sat beside me and brought me a drink while I conversed with another guest. When all the guests had arrived and the food was laid out he offered to collect a plate of food for me. I thanked him but said I was able to do it without help.

Conversation stopped as I struggled off the soft, low sofa and caught my balance. Legs and bodies moved out of my way to give me a wide berth. I nodded my thanks as I passed. At the salad table I dropped my fork and two other guests dove to pick it up for me. I filled my plate and wove my way back to my seat. I felt their eyes watching me as I made a semi-soft landing with my plate full of food. I didn't spill a drop. A couple of the guests around me questioned me about my disability and what had caused it. I filled them in the best I could, then gracefully changed the subject.

Part of the evening's fun was a gift exchange game. I was seated in a chair without arms at that point, having lost my preferred seat after a visit to the bathroom. When it was my turn to choose a gift from the pile I made two failed attempts to get to my feet as the others watched in awkward silence. There was a sigh of relief when I finally made it.

After the gift exchange was over Jose put on Cuban music and began teaching others how to dance the salsa. In short order others had joined them, pushing the furniture out of the way and invited those to were still seated to dance too. I declined out of fear of falling and causing a general consternation, but when I was the last one seated I threw caution to the wind and sidled up to the other dancers. It was fun for a few dances. I got into the rhythm (I used to love to dance) and even managed to find the dance moves that my legs could handle. It was fun and I was glad I could dance with the them for a bit.

When the music stopped and we sat down again, several of the guys congratulated me for joining in. Later, as guests were leaving, two guys said I had some pretty sexy moves as I was shaking it on the floor. They implied I was pretty hot stuff, though their flattery felt overdone, like a primary teacher praise of her students' stick-figure art. Be thankful you already have husbands, I teased them back. When it was my turn to leave, Jose thanked me profusely for coming, saying over and over what a special honour it was that I had made the effort to come. I felt it was definitely time to leave.

Back home, in the silence of my kitchen, I felt hugely alone and sad. They were the nicest, most considerate guys I could have asked for. At any point of my younger life, when I was like them, their attentions would have made me sing, but at that moment I only wanted to scream.

Christmas cheer

There's nothing like Christmas to bring out the best in people, like exhausted, belligerent shoppers pushing others out of their way while cursing their seasonal obligations. Families can be the worst, regressing to long-past problematic issues of resentment, guilt, power and self-pity.

I usually try to get the messiness of the season out of the way as soon as possible. I had all my Christmas shopping and my gift parcels for off to Ontario a week ago and my Christmas cards to friends a few days later. I gave my sister her gifts when she came over on Wednesday to give me another of her holistic allergy treatments. She wasn't pleased as she has no money to spend on gifts. I haven't had anything from her for at least 5 or 6 years and haven't given her anything in that period either. For a few years we weren't even talking.

I emailed my brother Rob to tell him the parcels were coming and got a reply that he hoped I hadn't spent any monies on his family. My other brother and mother will be even worse. Unlike any previous year, Rob and my sister have been very supportive and involved in trying to find a treatment or cure for my muscular dystrophy and I just wanted to give. It is my way of celebrating a good year and giving gives me a high.

In past years my siblings used the approach that Christmas was just for the kids, and as I was the only one without kids, it was often a one-way street. Until the past couple years, I rarely got an e-mail thanking me. Sometimes I got a phone call, piggybacked on my mother's phone bill while they were visiting her. But, as I said, it has been a much better year than usual between us and I wanted to give. Given that they had mentioned anything to me about not giving gifts this year, as they usually do by this point, and that the deadline for sending gifts through the post was quickly approaching, I bought gifts and mailed them. Let them squirm with discomfort if they choose. It's done and for me Christmas is virtually over.

But not for others. Today I joined a line-up at the post office to send a paperback to a friend in Colorado. The line wasn't moving. When I paused to look at BC calendars that were on sale beside me, an Englishman tried to push in front of me. When I politely pointed out that he had jumped in front of me he told me to make up my mind whether I was shopping or lining up. He grabbed my shoulder and tried to shove me in front of him, almost causing me to lose my balance. I warned him not to touch me, that I have a disability and can lose my balance easily.

He claimed, with an air of self-righteousness that he had a disability too. Well, I'm not grabbing or shoving you, am I, I replied. A fountain of insults flowed out of his mouth and I wished him "Merry Christmas, Fuckhead". That only escalated his verbal attack. There was such a tone of superiority and hatred in his words that I finally retorted "You're a Christian, aren't you?" He was taken aback for a moment and then replied "So what are you?" "Not what you are!"

He then switched into the self-righteous veteran mode, raising his voice to say he had served this country and put his line on the line for it but he was sure I hadn't. I'm going on 56 and don't tolerate arrogant assholes thinking they they have license to say anything because they are older. "Judging by your accent, you're not from this country," was my icy response, the only words I knew that might shut him up. It didn't shut him up immediately but it worked. I didn't look at him or respond again. Older English are the only immigrants I know of who feel superior to the locals and I never mind telling them what I think when they act this way. I'm not sure what the others in line-up felt about our exchange but I'm sure it didn't improve their day either.

Deep freeze

It is frigging cold outside. It's the type of cold that freezes my nose hairs together and claws at my leg muscles through the thin insulation of my blue jeans. The rest of me is fine, snugly blanketed in my new winter coat, but I don't want to risk the walk to work.

Five years ago in January I walked the mile in -7C (20F) and my leg muscles turned to jelly when I tried to hurry to get to the elevator that someone was holding for me. I fell hard on my tailbone, which was mildly bruised, but felt nothing else for four months until I was doing sit-ups in May. I felt a nerve being pinched at the top end on the front of my right thigh. I didn't realize it then, but the fall had started a hairline fracture at the top of my femur. The crack gradually grew over the next seven months until I fell and the femur cracked in half from hip to my knee.

I could wear long johns but would require changing at work or being uncomfortable all day. The bus is looking really good right now. I'm counting the days until the end of February.....

Tonight I ventured out to treat Stitch to a birthday dinner. My 43 yr old friend is such a ray of sunshine in my life!

I have two couch surfers arriving today from Seattle, my first to arrive since late September. Actually they are from Texas. Many Americans who visit Seattle have heard many nice things about Vancouver and think it would be worth it to rent a car and come see it for a day. They said they'd be here by 10:30. I had planned a car tour for them along the North Shore and other scenic areas as it is brilliantly sunny and close to freezing outside. But at 10:30 I got the call that they were just leaving Seattle. I don't mind. It gave me extra time to clean my place. Also this morning I learned that the Santa Claus parade will be disrupting traffic around to condo until 1. They should arrive around 1:30. After getting settled in they should have about 2 hrs to see the city before dark.

Besides having an apartment cleaner than I am, I have another reason to celebrate today. It has been 4 months since I last fell. Since I began tracking my falls in January '04 this is the 5th longest stretch without a fall. If I can stay upright another week I'll tie my 3rd best stretch. It would be bizarre for anyone else to celebrate that landmark but for me it's definitely worth a smile.

A power day

Winter is definitely here. The rains of November have given way to an approaching high pressure system that is sucking the cold, clear air from the Interior down over Vancouver. The break from the almost constant rain is a treat but the temperatures and sinking faster than the US dollar. By mid-week the temperatures are expected to be below freezing all day and as low as -7C at night; quite unusual this early in the winter.

The bright weather has everyone in fine spirits. It always gives me a boost of energy. I rose fairly early and rummaged through the garbage bins to find a dry cardboard box to make a parcel for my Christmas gifts to send to my mother and siblings in Toronto. My first choice was perfect but once I had it sealed and labeled it was too heavy for my compromised muscles to carry it two blocks to the post office. Fortunately, Fred had arranged to meet me for breakfast and he carried it for me. That was a huge weight, so to speak, off my mind, but I still had a couple more gifts to shop for, then wrap and then send off in a smaller parcel.

Christmas means nothing to me, or at least not the bogus “Christmas story” we’ve been force fed all our lives. I really don’t care if I never received anything but I do enjoy shopping for gifts others and sending them off. Giving is a sacred act for me, and after I have sent off my gifts I feel contented and nourished.

Then it was time to shop for myself. Jeremy, who I haven’t seen in months, came by in his Vitara and took me to Mountain Equipment Co-op. He shopped for an undercoat for his wife Cathy while I bought myself a long, warm and waterproof winter coat and stretch-on cleats for ice and snow. The way winter has started the odds are that we’ll have some nasty weather.

Jeremy was kind enough to drive me up to Kona afterwards to buy a few stained glass supplies. Mostly I needed solder and zinc U-channel to make frames for larger windows. I picked up a couple choice pieces of glass while I was at it: another $118 bill.

Then he brought me Christmas tree shopping. We headed back to Kitsilano, the fierce light of the afternoon sun glaring off his windshield. High above downtown, looking north from 33rd Ave, the blue mountains were capped with snow. The Lions are almost completely white. I've heard that Whistler has had record snowfalls but here next to the sea the snow line is still at 1000m. But by next week everything could be white. We usually get our biggest snowfalls when warmer air slides in over the dense freezing air as it retreats, especially if the front stalls over the city.

Jeremy wasted no time picking out a 2-metre tall Fraser fir. The regular price would have been $100, but it was on sale for $70. Our condo doesn’t allow real trees but I don’t have the space or inclination to have one anyway, not to mention the money. He strapped it to the roof of his car and drove me home. For a moment he entertained the notion of taking me back to his place so I could see his son Adam, who is a year and a half old now, but I reminded him that there are no railings on his stairs and I can't make it into his house. My limitations are always a bummer, but it’s also a fact of life. Hopefully I’ll get to see them again before they move to Colorado sometime next year.

My visit to Portland

I rode with Danzante in his car from New Westminster to Portland last Wednesday, Nov 25, the day before American Thanksgiving. It was one of those weather days I don't like to remember. Just walking to breakfast at Joe's before I left nearly soaked me through. The rain had stopped when I left the restaurant so I walked up the street to a travel agency to buy insurance, the only thing I had forgotten to do beforehand. It was pouring again when I walked home a few minutes later, and as I waited at a crowded bus stop on my way to New Westminster to meet him.

The rain kept up until White Rock, just before the border, and then it cleared up, making the rest of the drive much easier for him. We made it to Portland and Wallowa's home (the Chicken Ranch) an hour after dark. We were ready to roll up our sleeves and pitch in to help with dinner preparations for the next night, but Wallowa was exhausted and frustrated that his first 25 lb turkey took 11 hours to finish cooking. We decided to get up early to start the preps fresh. That night I slept with Mystic One. We snuggled a bit but did nothing beyond that. It was difficult to sleep as he was jittery and moved a lot. He was anxious about his move to Mexico that was about to happen a day and a half later.

Thursday, the morning of Thanksgiving dinner, we were all up early cleaning the green beans, peeling potatoes, chopping mushrooms and preparing the dressing. After our obligatory three hours of help Danzante and I left to deliver gifts he had brought for several friends. First we visited our mutual friends Ken (Quercus) and his partner David (who is reviewing my novel). I wasn't able to climb their front stairs, which had no railings, so they came out to say hi to me at the car. They stood there 20 minutes in the rain. Next we went to Periwinkle and Otter's place, which I also couldn't get into I surmised, then to his former best friend (which he hadn't seen for 5 years) Michael Buck's home.

Then it as off to another mutual friend's home, Gian (Gina Falloffabridgidda), where
we met his new partner Merlin. They made us sandwiches while they were making preparations for a naked gay men's Thanksgiving dinner! One participant, Dave, showed up shortly after we did, got naked (we were clothed) and came out of the bathroom with a raging hard-on. He was beautiful, and intelligent (once we focused on conversation instead of his cock) and I was fixated on him. Gian got Danzante stoned, too stoned to drive, so I killed time with Dave watching porn in the next room. He was hard as rock again and we started to fool around, me in my clothes and him being naked. It was the hottest, sweetest encounter I had had for months and, though I didn't come, it did wonders for my ego. I couldn't stop talking about him when I left. I gave him my phone and email address but I doubt I'll ever hear from him.

This was followed by a lovely visit with another mutual friend Cedar, which lasted far too long. We were over an hour late for Thanksgiving dinner by the time we returned to Wallowa's. Some of the guests had just finished as we arrived but most were still eating. I walked around for the next 20 minutes looking for a clean set of cutlery and a place to sit. There were 50 guests and so many familiar faces I had met at Breitenbush all happy to see me, but I only wanted to sit down and eat. The guests mingled and chatted for another couple hours before some of them said their goodbyes. It was all a bit overwhelming, but flattering too since so many were sincerely glad to see me again.

Friday the weather was brilliantly sunny. Danzante gave me a tour of the parks and neighbourhoods of Portland. I was very impressed. As much as I love Vancouver, Portland seems more livable, friendlier, more relaxed and has better architecture. We picked up Michael Buck, had lunch and then the three of us headed to look for a butte to get a view of the city. We never found it and ended up far out into the countryside having given up after an hour or so.

That evening several of Wallow's friends dropped by, including an old friend of Danzante's, John, and his Guatemalan bf, and another friend of D's, Jason, and his Spanish flamenco dancer/lover Juan who live in Santa Fe. John seemed to take a shine to me and asked me for my phone and e-mail address before he left.

We wound our way back into the city, dropped Michael off and headed to Otter and Periwinkle's home for yet another Thanksgiving dinner. It was a huge struggle to get into their place but I eventually managed it. This time there were only 8 guests, including Jim (Gymbawb), Periwinkle's mother Lotus and two of Danzante's oldest friends, Vickie and Levita. Levita, although a straight man, was in a dress. I love straight people who act gay in public! I didn't get to meet him though as he had a feinting spell that had everyone in a panic. He came to just as someone was dialing 911. The rest of the evening was uneventful in comparison. Danzante spent the night at the Otterwinkles and Gymbawb, who lives at the Chicken Ranch, drove me back there. I was proud that I got into so many difficult places in the past two days without a single fall.

Saturday the Faes of Portland meet for coffee downtown on the east side. Sssnake, an old friend who also lives at the Chicken Ranch, drove me there. Again there were a couple dozen familiar faces, including Dave from Gian's naked party. He made no special effort to spend time with me, though he was friendly. He was a bit shocked that I was using a cane (which I prefer to do in unfamiliar terrain). Danzante showed up after spending a couple hours catching up with Michael Buck. A group of 6 of us went for dinner at a great little restaurant called "Old Wives' Tales". Danzante and I did another abbreviated tour of a couple other trendy neighbourhoods and checked out a galley before returning to the Chicken Ranch. Danzante went for a Chinese food dinner with Sssnake. I wasn't hungry so I spent the evening chatting with Gymbawb and getting to know him better.

Sunday was good weather again. Wallowa did Danzante's hair and Sssnake took everyone out for breakfast and a wonderful eatery before we left. We weren't on the road until almost half past noon, but we didn't stop, except for gas, so it was still light until we were half an hour from the border. It was a bit too long without food for me and I was a bit irritable when I couldn't find my transit tickets at the Skytrain station in New Westminster where Danzante dropped me off. I can spend five great days with someone but if I get grumpy at the end of it that is what he remembers. He was pissed at me for my few seconds of selfishness, but I think he'll get over it.

Part of my anxiety was the Skytrain ride itself, as it is often packed on a weekend night heading downtown. It was last Sunday, as there was a game on or something. Soon I was squeezed in like a sardine, and I fretted over how difficult it would be to get up and get off the train when I needed to. The train emptied though, two stops before mine. I was afraid I'd have to wait 20 minutes in the rain for my bus but it was only spitting and the bus came within 10 minutes. By now you know I hate public transit, especially when it is crowded and when I have stand waiting for extended periods with a pack on my back. I prepared myself a sandwich as soon as I got home and I was fine again.

November blahs

News item this morning: 17 cm (6.8") of rain has fallen on Vancouver this month. The average is 17.9 cm, but we should exceed it with a 3-day wall of unbroken rain arriving early tomorrow morning and still 5 more days beyond that with expected intermittent rain. The record, incredibly, is 35 cm (14") set 3 years ago.

I should be excited about my impending trip to Oregon for American Thanksgiving, but I still have the blahs. The lack of light is the worst of it. I get out whenever I can, but I usually slump right back into my fug as soon as I get home.

This morning I went to the weekly Faerie Coffee gathering at Cafe a Go-Go, which happens every Sunday a block from my place. It is usually a small group of us who chat for an hour or two. This morning there were only five of us: Aunty Tinkerbell, Rainbow Strongheart, Butterfly Menace, Holly and myself. It wasn't raining, which was a treat, but the skies are darkening again as I write this.

Though it wasn't much of a group this week, I should have my fill of Faeries by this time next week. I work the first two days of the week and then I head down to the Chicken Ranch in Portland with Danzante Caldera Wednesday morning, windshield wipers slapping time all the way.

No further news about the Thanksgiving gathering except that our friend and host Wallowa seems set on a Frank Lloyd Wright-type design for the window he wants me to make for him. More about that when I return.

I realize that the Faerie names I refer to must sound strange to my non-Faerie friends. It's second nature to me now to refer to my friends by their Faerie names. As strange and amusing as they are, they are respected and taken seriously by those who have them and we really do use them.

Faerie names are chosen by their owners, even if they are suggested by someone else. Some, like myself, bring a nickname used in their regular life, or "Muggle" life as some Faeries call it (in reference to Harry Potter), while others spend years with the Faes using only their birth name.

Some name themselves after something from nature they prefer, as Faerie philosophy embraces a reverence for Nature. Examples are flowers or trees, such as Tulip, Cedar, Holly, Manzanita, Chaparral or Tangerine. Others use minerals, such as Onyx or Garnet. Others use combinations, such as Jasmine Amethyst, or add embellishments, such as Juniper Fabulous Forest or Pansy Wyldefyre. Some use animals or spirit names, or refer to spiritual processes or incarnations, such as Full Moon Dancer or Danzante Caldera (dancer in the volcano).

My favourite names are often ones that Canadians choose. Perhaps because we are such a serious nation, the names we choose are often playful or clever, such Ariel Kombat, Butterfly Menace, Morgain Lessloss, Darlene the Ambassador's Wife, Thirsty McBunny, Crystal Shanda-Lear or Celeste E.L.Fyre.

I chose my own name, Luke Warmwater, when I wanted an unlisted telephone number but didn't want to pay extra on top of saving Telus the printing costs. They were fine with listing me under a false name as long as I paid the bill under my legal name. I stuck with it when I became a Faerie because it reminded me not to take myself too seriously. When I was younger I was either too timid or angry (too cold or too hot) to manage life with élan. The name still fits as my goal now is to be comfortable and even-keeled, both for myself and for others, a place of safety and serenity, rather like Goldilocks' proverbial porridge.

I'm sure I'll have more Faerie stories to share when I get home a week from today.

new patterns

It has been almost six months since I have finished a piece of stained glass artwork. Yesterday I finished Raspberry Showboat's 158-piece Celtic ankh but I forgot to take a picture of it before he picked it up today. It would have been pointless anyway. This weekend has been so overcast and dark that setting something on the window sill would not be enough to illuminate it. I'll post a photo later when Raspberry sends me one.

I have decided to go down to Portland to celebrate Thanksgiving with some Faerie friends, my first American Thanksgiving ever. It will be exotic. My host will be my friend Wallowa, the owner and landlord of a north Portland Faerie commune known to local Faes as the "Chicken Ranch". I am not sure why. The tenants are not that young.

I have heard that Wallowa extends an open invitation to a large number of friends every year and that this year he will have a sit down feast for 35(!!) guests. Some stay over and of course beds need to be shared. He tells me that one Fae, Mystic One, has asked to be paired up with me. I have a mixed reaction to that. It has been a long time since I have known of anyone who wanted to sleep with me, so I am flattered. I have met Mystic One before and chatted with him twice at Breitenbush, but he has never attracted me sexually. His former Fae name of choice was "Fister", which has the same effect as putting lemon juice on my tight little Canadian ass. Hopefully he respects boundaries.

Wallowa has spent a couple years building an extension onto his sizable house, most of it underground. It is a tasteful expansion but it is not quite complete. When I first visited it three months ago there was a large hole in the wall between the kitchen and the new extension where a window will go when the framing is completed. It's a big space, around 39" wide by 37" tall. He wants a stained glass window installed there, something that lets in light but obscures at the same time to give a little privacy between the units. I have been working on patterns.
He says he wants something simple. He suggested a couple shoots of bamboo to our mutual Fae friend Gerry, who I taught the art of stained glass to 2+ years ago, but Wallowa is a colourful character and needs colour in the kitchen, something that stands out. I have suggested a colourful rooster, like the one in the picture but without the two hens in the foreground. I might leave in the white hen. After all, what would be more appropriate for the Chicken Ranch than chickens? He has also suggested a stylized, geometric Frank Lloyd Wright-type pattern which I am also researching, but my hunch is that he will need something more organic to match his luxurious patio garden off the kitchen. I hope to have both patterns ready to take to him before Thanksgiving.

Testing, testing.....

In August my brother referred me to a woman named Moneca, who uses a diagnostic machine calibrated to eastern medical uses, in the hopes that I would get more insight into what is causing my muscular dystrophy. I made an appointment in mid-September, which didn't work out, and then my first official diagnostic treatment happened six days ago.

The first time I went to her office in a yoga centre on Burrard St. The visit was fraught with bad timing and circumstances. First, the yoga centre, supposedly a healing centre, is on the second floor with no ramp or elevator access for disabled persons. The railings were too far apart on the broad staircase leading up to reception so I struggled to hoist myself up a step at a time hugging one of the railings. I was shaky and exhausted by the time I reached the top. Inside, the toilets in the washrooms were in stalls on raised platforms with nothing to hold onto to pull myself up. Some of the yoga rooms were also on a split level with no railings to assist with the stairs. The atmosphere was upper-class yuppie elegance, all white and beige with low light and low upholstered furniture without arms or backs that I could not use, and soft, meditative music playing. In spite of the elegance and that Walmart friendliness of the staff who greeted me, I couldn't get over how much disregard they showed for disabled people. I tried to describe how difficult it was to use their facilities, but their cognitive synapses seemed unable to register the information.

Moneca arrived as I was recovering from my climb. She apologized, though she had little choice since I was fuming by this time. She led me down one of the nondescript hallways to the small room she rents. There she discovered that she forgotten the cables she needed to connect her hocus pocus machine to her laptop. She left me sitting on a stool for half an hour while she ran to Office Depot and then to Best Buy looking for replacement cables.

When she returned she found she had also forgotten her batteries and all her running was to no avail. She was stressed out to the point of crying and couldn't put herself in an intuitive space, which is so necessary for this kind of treatment. I was not in a good space either. I had just learned the night before that my second lover Matt had dropped dead of a heart attack at the finish line of a triathlon the weekend before and I was overwhelmed with sadness. She asked me to talk about about my loss while she gave me a free foot massage, but she turned everything I shared around to talk about herself. I surmised that she was too stressed to focus on me.

Moneca does home visits for the same price, which I didn't know at the time she booked me at the yoga centre. I wasn't impressed that she hadn't suggest that when I booked given my mobility issues. The H1N1 flu, the film festival and bed bug infestation delayed her home visit for six weeks. We finally set up a mutually acceptable date for a week ago.

She arrived with her all-encompassing bio-feedback machine and energy "zapper". I don't know its real name, but it's more than a diagnostic machine. It does something with electro-magnetic frequencies to alter bodily responses. She calls it "zapping"; probably not the correct technical term. She strapped bands around my ankles and wrists, and a large band around my head (that left indentations in my forehead for 2 hours after she left), and cables to connect all the components to her laptop. For two hours she assessed my bodily composition, chakkras and emotional patterns and then "zapped" me to make corrections.

The machine seemed to sense that I was both diabetic and had some issues with muscular dystrophy, but it focused on vitamin deficiencies and my emotional state (low-grade depression, low sex drive and my heart chakkra wasn't very open at the time). I didn't get any leads as to what was causing the muscular dystrophy. The machine threw out vague terms for problems I was facing, such as "trauma" and "poison". When I asked for further clarification she just shrugged and said "They're just words on a page." At another point she told me that I come from a very good genetic stock. The machine read my stock to be a "1" while hers was a "19". She wasn't to tell me much about what that meant either. She confessed she was only able to use 10% of the machine's capacity as she was still learning about it. She had paid $23,000 and was obviously trying to recoup some of it be doing these half-ass assessments. I paid her the $100 fee (which she told me later really should have been $150) and she left.

Two days later she sent me a report that was almost a verbatim repeat of the "words on a page" that the machine coughed up without any interpretation. They were largely useless to me. She also gave me 5 points to work on before her next visit: 1) Check wheat consumption (my sister's treatment for a gluten allergy seems to have worn off after the H1N1), 2) Eat less salt, more raw foods, 3) Learn about hormones dopomine, seratonin and oxytocin (to what end she did not explain), 4) Pick up a book by Mantek Chia called "Microcosmic Orbit" to learn the tantric practice of circulating lust energy through the body, and 5) Understand that what I eat affects me. That last point assumes I know nothing after struggling with food allergies, digestive and diabetic issues and their treatments over the past 20 years. One can always learn more, but where exactly should I focus? This report was supposed to be worth $150? Not!

Today I also went to see a famous Vancouver naturopath and acupuncturist, Larry Chan, who I was referred to by Thomas Moore, the "intuitive healer" my sister recommended. Thomas had said my dystrophy has been caused by excessive uric acid in my body over the last 20 years. My GP says that makes no sense since he tests my kidney function and for uric acid every year, but Thomas told me Larry Chan "walks on water" as far as he was concerned. While I didn't put a lot of stock in Thomas's diagnosis I did more more insights into my dystrophy. I waited four months for this appointment. Hopefully something will come out of it.

Although Larry Chan's manner instilled in me more confidence in his professionalism than Moneca's did, the initial hour-long appointment was $250 and he has requested I have two tests done, one that costs $80, a second that costs $158 and a follow-up appointment that costs $90. Total cost before I get any feedback or treatment = $578. There goes Christmas!!

a wet November

It is very much a typical late autumn on the West Coast, also known as the Wet Coast at this time of year. It has rained every day over the past week and it is forecast to rain every day in the coming week.

Here in my warm, dry condo, overlooking an unbroken wall of taller office buildings across Hornby St, the grey day looks much worse than it is because my building, formerly an office building itself, has tinted windows that make the sky look darker than it is.

So I took a stroll outside into the West End (also known as the Wet End this time of year) to have breakfast, do a little shopping and post a book to a friend in Colorado. The rain didn't let up. Sometimes it was just spitting and then it was heavy again. I don't do umbrellas, as I find it harder to walk with them. I always leave them behind or forget to bring them with me anyway. I have waterproofed my cap and wear my Gortex jacket instead.

I have to push myself not to give into my low-grade depression I often struggle with at this time of year. Getting outside helps, but not enough. I rested a bit after coming back, then pushed myself outside the door again, this time to go to Kitsilano to buy two "Settlers of Catan" games for my nieces and nephews for Christmas (they can share). I went to Drexoll Games, a store where board game nerds gather to play complicated games. Even the proprietor was caught up in a game so I waited for him. A cute, post-twink customer noticed I had chosen the wrong set and saved me from making a return trip. He was immersed in looking through a box of special $1 playing cards on the counter, part of a type of wizard game that he had been playing since puberty. Some of the cards, he told me, go for $20-$30 each. Yes, Scarlett, we either have too much spending money on this continent or we don't know how to use it properly.

On the way home the sky started to break in the west and took on the look of a Dutch masters painting. Half an hour later the setting sun, broke through under the clouds still over the city, trapped by the mountains, lighting their underbellies and painting the buildings in a brilliant honey gold. For a few minutes it was stunning.

It's 5:30 and completely dark now. It has been for half an hour. I am leaving in an hour to visit Rich and Luis at their new place in Burnaby, bringing my Settlers of Catan game and a batch of fresh baked pumpkin cookies for us to munch on. I dread going to places in the dark that I am unaccustomed to, but they'll be picking me up at Edmonds Stn so at least I won't need to look for house numbers.

A weekend on the Sunshine Coast

At Raspberry Showboat's 50th birthday party on the 18th, his husband Jasmine Amethyst invited me to a come to the Sunshine Coast this past weekend to celebrate with other Faeries. I got a ride with my close friend Stitch, who picked me up from work at lunchtime. We made the 1:30 ferry to Langdale and were at Tulip's home, the Landing Place, an hour or so later.
Why is it called the "Sunshine Coast"? Why did the Norse call that island iceberg "Greenland"? Why is North Korea called the "The People's Democratic Republic of Korea"? Why does Microsoft Vista claim to be problem-free? Who knows; it was raining of course.

Jazzy and Raspberry Showboat were already there. They had brought a mountain of food that Jazzy had bought or prepared. We sipped tea, relaxed and waited for the others to arrive. Epick finished his banquet work around 4 and Jazzy drove to the ferry to pick him up around 5:30. Morgain Lessloss didn't arrive until much later, around 10pm. Tangerine was ill, Sat Dharna ate something questionable and Temple was tied up with work so there were only seven of us.

It was a great weekend. I felt very pampered with all of Jazzy's cooking, which was delicious. There were tons of sugary snacks but I was able to avoid most of them. Saturday was deliciously sunny. The others participated in a sweat lodge and late evening hot tub soaks. I couldn't do the sweat lodge as even crawling inside and sitting upright for one or two hours isn't possible for me now. I wouldn't want to anyway, as I hate high heat and dark, enclosed spaces that are not easy to escape from. So I had plenty of quiet time Saturday afternoon to read. I am reading Thomas Moore's "Care of the Soul". I think I could have done the hot tub, but it is always tricky for me to get out. As it was, I was too tired by late evening anyway.

The real blessing of the weekend was being assigned to sleep with Epick, a Faerie I had not got to know well before. He's chatty and likes to talk about himself, as most young guys do, but he is intelligent and has had a difficult and interesting life so it was fun listening to him. He is handsome too. In bed, he wanted me to cuddle him. It has been a long time since I have cuddled with another man all night, and even longer since doing with someone as attractive and fit as him. Both of us are wary of casual sex, so it worked out perfectly that touch, not sex, was our mutual priority. The fact that he likes to sleep under half a ton of blankets was forgivable.

Two nights of cuddling did wonders to sooth my soul. I felt I was floating when I got home. I told him I would be open to doing it again. He said he'd think about it. I think we are beginning to trust each other fairly well but one usually prefers the convenience of his own bed and living arrangements. I know I do, and I cannot get into his place with all the stairs it would require. At least I hope we remain friends.

PHOTO 1: Jasmine Amethyst (Jazzy)
PHOTO 2: Raspberry Showboat & Bonna
PHOTO 3: Morgain Lessloss, Epick & Stitch
PHOTO 4: Jasmine & Tulip in kitchen
PHOTO 5: Tulip & Bonna
PHOTO 6: Stitch & his son Kevin

Rough month

Things have finally settled down after a rough start to the month. The sore throat I acquired on the 25th of September turned out to be the H1N1 virus, in retrospect. My symptoms, including the blistered throat without phlegm, the dry cough, lack of congestion, chills and aches, matched the symptoms published. It hammered me hard for three days, and weakened me somewhat for a couple weeks.

Of course, with the Vancouver International Film Festival starting on Oct 1st, it was challenging to take in 5 or 6 films per day. I tried meditating or just staying quiet between films but it was draining. Then I discovered my bed bug infestation after only two days of the festival and I missed out on seven films while I was washing, "roasting" in a hot dryer and bagging everything in my drawers, closets, etc, while I was still sick. I missed a few more while I waited my old mattress and box spring to be collected and my new ones to be delivered. I also had to make arrangements for others to help me bag the new ones with vinyl covers to avoid reinfestation.

I feel good that the pain and chaos is now all behind me while the hype and panic about the virus is swirling around at its loudest. It's rather like having already seen a film before everyone starts raving about it. I am sure this could be a serious virus for those who have frail health, but the hype is not justified. The Feds have finally got the vaccine ready for the public but it will likely do more damage than good now that the virus in already rampant in schools and workplaces. The vaccine is 50% owned by Donald Rumsfeld's corporation, which has made a couple billion dollars from the over-heated hype, while many of those who get the vaccine will get sicker because of it. One co-worker even says she plans to get the vaccine even though she has already had it. There is no sense speaking logically to anyone who has bought into the panic and hype.

With these troubles behind me, the later part of October feels like a summer breeze, albeit a rather cool, wet one. This week I'll get a letter off to strata council asking them to pay for my spraying of my condo. I doubt they will do, as they have not notified my neighbours above, below and on either side, who are possibly now going to be infested. I will give them a month to answer before approaching a lawyer about their removal of the disabled access through our courtyard, since my efforts to get their attention or a response from City Council have fallen on deaf and disinterested ears.

I also promised Raspberry Showboat a stained glass hanging of an ankh symbol for his 50th birthday, which I need to design. Both Butterfly Menace and Epick are interested in lessons and I feel drawn to design a Celtic window for Tulip's front door at the Landing Place. It's time to get my creative juices flowing again.

New bed

The new bed and box spring set has arrived. Fred and Eric turned up an hour later to help me put on the vinyl covers and tape up the zippers so future "pets" will have no place to live. The thought of them still sends a chill up my spine. Afterwards, I took the two of them out for lunch at Joe's Diner.

Today I begin the second half of the film festival. I'll put the rest of the condo back in order over the next couple mornings now that the bed is in place. It's 80% back to normal anyway. I feel luckier than ever to have my place and know that I won't lose it anytime soon. Last night I saw "Home", a French-financed documentary about what the human race has done and is doing to destroy the planet--very depressing--and the Lee Daniels film "Precious", about an illiterate, severely overweight Black teenager, pregnant by her father who raped her, who struggles to get on her feet for the first time in her life. Both were very powerful, perhaps the best of the film festival so far.

I sent an e-mail to Tom and Tibi yesterday morning apologizing for having to kick them out so quickly and saying I would still like to be friends. No answer so far. Hopefully they are not mad at me, but I can live with it if they are. I wouldn't have done it differently. Perhaps they have no use for me now that I am no longer their host, but that's OK too. I saved them about $700 by letting them stay so long.

Sunday's aftermath

The spraying is over. For the first day, I couldn't enter the bedroom for the strength of the fumes. The exterminator failed to remember to leave the name of the insecticide or a sample so my sister could clear me on it, and he also forgot to leave my key, which he says he will do immediately, if he remembers. He was also suppose to call yesterday to set a return date on the 17th or 18th, which he hasn't so far.

My place is still in chaos, boxes and bags piled mountainously high on my kitchen counters. The odd item has returned to its old placement but I have moved nothing back into the bedroom yet. I will wait until it is reinspected in two weeks.

I have decided to get rid of the old mattress and box spring. The mattress wasn't too bad, according to the exterminator, but the box spring had several nests inside of it. Regardless, I don't feel like sleeping on all that toxic spray. I suppose I could just seal both in plastic. If any bugs survived the spraying, they could not live long inside the plastic with no access to their host.

Anyway, it has all been an ordeal. I have been exhausted for several days. Now I am returning to the film festival. I could only handle 2 films on Sunday, while my place was being sprayed, but I handled 5 (barely) yesterday. I did have a great sleep last night though, and feel much better today. I plan to get some of the bags unpacked today and the stacks of books taken off of my kitchen counters.

Fred has convinced me that I need a maid.

A week from hell

I think the worst is over but it has been definitely the worst week of the year so far. It started off with a sore throat on the 25th and by the 28th it was totally blistered and raw. I was achy, feverish, with little chills running through me, and I was exhausted. Tuesday night, the 29th, I struggled out of bed at 11pm scarcely able to breathe, as my throat had swollen almost shut. I couldn't utter a syllable but I was tempted to try to call 911 anyway. I didn't though. When I got the bright idea of spraying nasal decongestant down my throat, my situation got a lot better and I was able to sleep. I even had a good night's sleep and my health turned for the better.

That was also the first night that I noticed itchy welts on my arm. They spread to my back and legs over the next 3 days. I thought I had somehow picked up fleas, but at 4am yesterday morning I felt something small scampering along my arms, like a bead of sweat that was running half horizontally. It was 4am. I switched on the light and saw the bed crawling with bugs. I freaked.

I haven't been back to bed since. I told the two Hungarian couch surfers that they must leave the following morning. Amazingly, they asked if they could stay one more night, though I would not have a place to sleep if they did. Of course I told them definitely not. I sat up from 4am until 9am waiting for them to wake and start packing. I decided to go for breakfast for the coffee, not the food, as I had no appetite. When I returned they were packing.

The pest control company told me to wash all fabrics throughout the apartment, or at least to put them in a hot dryer for at least 20 minutes, then stored them in air-tight clear plastic bags when I brought them back into the apartment. I was exhausted but I had no choice, and no one I could think of was available to help me in my still-weak condition.

My sister suggested I rent a large storage container and a parking spot down the street and she offered to bring in large cardboard boxes and a dolly to help me load all my possessions into it for a couple days. It seemed way too involved and she couldn't be available until Monday. I wanted the spraying to be done today and besides, the pest control company needed my furniture to be on site so they could treat it. It was difficult to do it all myself but it was better than waiting for help later.

It was a minor miracle that no one on our floor wanted to use either the washer or dryer on that Saturday so I was able to put through about 15 to 20 loads. I emptied four full dressers, did all the bedding, table cloths and emptied my closets, cedar chest and bookcase, and throughout it all I couldn't stop scratching myself. Every speck seemed to be crawling and it drove me crazy.

I slept on the futon in the living room last night, freed of its serve to couch surfers. I slept off and on for about 10 hours but I was hype-aware of every itch. This morning it was harder to get going, in spite of the rest, but I continued in a haphazard way until my friend Fred arrived at 11 to help me move the boxes from the closet and to lift the mattress. The bed bug nests were visible in two corners of the box spring.

With the last things fed through the washer and dryer, Fred and I dust-mopped and washed the floors and took a couple more loads of garbage out. It is amazing how much stuff I cleared out--a silver lining to my cloud. The pest control guy showed up an hour later than promised but Fred was still able to squeeze in a quick breakfast with me before leaving for work.

I talked with the fellow who did the treatment after it was done. Besides forgetting to leave my key or a sample of the insecticide for my sister to clear me on, he told me that the box spring was heavily infested and needed to be replaced. I will replace it and the mattress too, as soon as possible. This whole exercise will coast me just under $1,000.

Shit happens. Everyone I have told is pre-occupied with how I got them. It is impossible to say. I have learned that they can take two or three months to manifest themselves, and I was in 3 hotels in Utah in June. They weren't nesting in the living room where the couch surfers have stayed, so while I suspected them at first I am not so sure anymore. I am more interested in getting my life back to normal, health and condo-wise. I missed 8 films at the international film festival. I have paid $350 for a pass and had only seen 16 when I found the bugs. I may lose seeing a couple more waiting for pick and delivery of mattresses, but it has to be done. That process I'll start tomorrow morning.

Rough start to VIFF

Yesterday was Day 1 of the Vancouver International Film Festival. I am still recovering from a powerful influenza, which gave me a small fever, a blistered throat and complete laryngitis a day and a half earlier. I was exhausted after seeing 2 films at the media pre-screenings on Wednesday so the effort of seeing five seemed daunting in and of itself.

I made it through, but the day was difficult from start to finish. It began in the ticket line-up at the start of the day. I got there just after 10 and the first film, "Milk of Sorrow" from Peru, was at 11. The computer that prints the tickets wasn't working so we stood in the line-up almost an hour before it started moving. It was raining steadily and I was quite wet.

Finally, they ticket manager pulled those who wanted to see "Milk of Sorrow" from the line-up and ushered them in, but in spite of the ticketing problems the theatre manager had started the movie without an audience. I missed the first crucial 20 minutes of the film, and while I got the gist of the plot, there were still many unanswered questions at the end.

When I came back out to pick up the tickets for the remaining 4 films, two of them were already sold out, so I picked a couple films I was not keen on seeing. My laryngitis returned from being damp so long.

The second film was a French one, "Bluebeard", a period piece featuring a mixed bag of anachronistic costumes and manners that made little sense. The main girl, who played Bluebeard's bride, could have been my present couch-surfer Tibi's sister. It was followed by a Chilean film "The Maid" in the same theatre, but we had to leave the theatre so the director could do a sound check. It was an excellent film with the dour lead so well acted. One of the children, a pubescent boy named Lucas, was terrifically cute in looks and mannerisms too.

My throat was still improved greatly over Wednesday but the blisters were being replaced by a deep, chest-rattling cough. Fortunately it wasn't too frequent. The last two films of the day were both documentaries in Theatre 1, the first being a laconic Swedish account of farm life, called "The Way of Nature", which I thought amusingly of as "Way Too Much Nature". It featured camera close-ups of colourful roosters, hens, goats, cows, turkeys, dogs and the goings-on on the farm throughout three seasons of the year.

It was very quiet hour sitting in wait for the next film. Until five minutes to play time it seemed I'd have a vast area empty around me, but the crowd who can't arrive on time arrived and pressed in around me as the film began. The last film was called "At The Edge of The World" and traced a two-month campaign by the Sea Shepard organization to hamper the Japanese whaling fleet in the Ross Sea of Antarctica. The was exciting and visually chilling. There was a Q&A afterwards and I was hemmed in on both sides for an hour after the film ended. Beware of Q&As and sit near the aisle when you see one coming....

My place was a mess when I got home, every room, as my two Hungarian couch surfers have made themselves at "pig sty". I refuse to clean, shop, or cook for them anymore. I'm not even taking out the garbage for them for a couple days and see how they like that.

Story of Matt, Part 10 - Conclusion

Matt did stay in Cairo a couple more days. He returned to Giza and climbed the great pyramid on his own. Afterwards, he cycled through the Sinai Desert as he told me he would. He was caught in a sandstorm and taken in by Bedouins who fed him pigeon for dinner. He continued onto Israel, passing through Gaza en route, where he was mistaken as an American and chased by locals with kitchen knives. Fortunately, he outran them. He toured Israel and then worked on a kibbutz for six months before cycling overland to India.

He was gone from Canada another eleven months after we parted in Cairo. I only wrote to him in reply to his letters, as he preferred. I received two or three while he was in Israel but I didn't receive his last one for another for six months, sent from a beach in Goa in the spring of 1985. His letters were factual and didn't ask how I was doing.

I didn't need any more proof that we would not be lovers when he returned. I stopped harbouring such expectations or intentions, but I still had a soft spot for him in my heart. I looked forward to seeing him again and very much wanted to be his best friend. I knew it might take time and I was willing to give him that.

He arrived home a month earlier than expected, at the end of April before seasonal air fares increased. I was delighted to receive a call from him the following day, asking to meet me at work for lunch. I changed my lunch time to accommodate our meeting but he didn't show up until an hour later. He had already eaten, and he was totally cold and distant with me. It was confusing why he had contacted me right away if he wasn't eager to see me. I told myself he'd warm up on his own if I just gave him space, just as he had in Greece.

He said he would be out of town for two weeks, but I saw him in a gay bar in Toronto four days later. I thought nothing of it as plans can change, but he was as icy as he had been a few days before. As he spoke with his friends, he half-turned his back to exclude me. I foolish stuck around, thinking he'd warm up after a couple drinks. He didn't. His friends offered to drop me off at my home on the way to driving him home. I asked to kiss him good night as I got out. He agreed, but at the last second he turned his face away. "You've got to be careful what you'll catch these days," he commented without looking at me.

Those were perhaps the cruelest words ever spoken to me by anyone, and they cut me deeply. I knew then we would never be friends again. It was a sad and painful time for me, plagued by anxiety and a debilitating loneliness. He avoided me all summer and I felt too betrayed to contact him.

He did try to befriend me again once he met a new boyfriend in the fall. I wasn't enthusiastic but I agreed to give it try. I met them for dinner in a local restaurant. I tried to chat up his new lover, but he was very uncomfortable. In spite of my efforts he spent most of the evening staring at his plate. Matt thought it was worth a second try and invited me for coffee at their place, but his lover busied himself doing housework around us as we talked. The three of us never met again. Time passed, but the healing was slow and my absence did not make Matt's heart grow fonder. I occasionally asked him out for coffee to keep in touch, perhaps every year or so, but he usually kept me waiting a couple months before responding to my invitation.

My life rolled on. I continued expanding my art and had many wonderful adventures hiking in the Arctic, sailing in the Caribbean and cycling through France and other places. In 1991, I cycled from Lisbon to Norway to India, a route somewhat similar to his own, but he never showed any interest in my accomplishments. I eventually gave up trying. In 1996 I moved back to Vancouver. I tried one final time to contact him when I visited Toronto in January 2001. He was cordial but he didn't want to meet me or to even know where to reach me. I heard nothing more about him until his death 12 days ago.

Recounting this story has dredged up a painful flood of memories from my past. As I said at the start several entries ago, it tells me little about Matt except what was already obvious to me at the end of our travels together, that he and I were not compatible partners. He couldn't deal with emotions of love, sadness or anger. Right and wrong no longer matter, and I suppose they never did. What I do see is how hard it was for me to shake these painful experiences, and how these feelings were crippling me at that time. I don't court them anymore, but they are still buried in my memory banks.

As much as I loved him, it was too painful to hold onto the hope that we would one day be friends again, so I let it go. If he could speak to me now he'd accuse me of still loving him, and he would be right. Even if we could not be friends, I have never forgotten what it felt like to hold him while he slept, and I always wanted to know that he was safe and fine. When love becomes unconditional, it is easier than friendship.

Perhaps he overcame some of his fear of emotions over time. Certainly he must have known considerable happiness. After 24 years, he was still with the lover who replaced me when he died, the one who was so timid when we met. I don't know if theirs was ever a richly loving relationship, but Matt had so many accomplishments to be proud of before he died. He pushed every part of his being to achieve excellence, except his heart which, compromised after years of bottling up his emotions, became his weakest link. It gave out at the finish line of the Wasaga Beach Triathlon, when it could no longer keep up with the rest of him.

I will always miss you, Matt.

Story of Matt, Part 9 - Egypt

The worst of the fireworks between Matt and I was over by the time we returned to Athens. His bank had finally released his money and the next day we bought tickets on Air Egypt to Cairo.

The only international hostel in the city was full of refugees from Sudan so we took room in a hotel on Talaat Harb St, the main street of Cairo. It was built by Europeans a few decades earlier and had seen better days. The high ceilings had patterns of black mould, which Matt referred to as 'Egyptian motif'. The ground floor was a brothel, and while the upper floors were relatively clean, we saw the occasional rat scamper across the rundown lobby. It was no different from the rest of the city which had settled into decay long ago.

Egyptians say anyone who drinks from the Nile will always return. Travel agents warn us that anyone who drinks from the Nile will never leave. Matt seemed to be immune to the 'Pharaoh's Revenge'. I escaped it too, except for a few debilitating cramps one afternoon, so we were able to maximize the use of our time. Each day we woke to the morning prayer calls blaring mercilessly from loudspeakers at every street corner. We strolled the dusty streets and dodged the kamikaze drivers to see the City of the Dead, the street markets and museums.

I had never been anywhere for foreign to my Canadian sensibilities, but I adapted with enthusiasm. As we walked along the crowded streets, we placed bets on which we would be asked for most often, sex or money. Sex usually won out. Matt taught me to choose the food dishes at delicatessens that were crawling with ants, not flies, since ants don't shit on their food supply. He had learned this in Morocco. We also spent a romantic evening at the Felfela, a famous restaurant oozing is atmosphere and charm, with live pigeons in cages and street cats wandering about.

Then we began our excursions outside the city, up to hills east of the sprawling city to the fortress of Saladin, where Mohamed Ali headquartered his rebellion against the Turks a century ago, and to the great pyramids at Giza to the west. The excursions were a great deal of fun. On the bus to Giza we were packed so tightly we could hardly move. Matt was forced tightly against me, his crotch pressing against my hand that was clutching a railing. No one saw as I rubbed him with my thumb until he was hard as a rock. Our plan was to climb the great pyramid at sunset, as Peter Lee and Mel Gibson did in the movie "Gallipoli", but a scuzzy urchin claiming to be a guard wanted "baksheesh" or he would report us to the authorities. We opted not to try, fearing that he would report us for a reward even if we did. As part of the ying and yang of the universe, the wonderous creations of Man are always surrounded by human cess.

We put his bike in storage at the hotel and boarded a train to the south for a few days. The sun was setting as it rolled up the Nile past the sillhouettes of 30 or more ancient pyramids of all shapes and sizes, the palms trees looking like stick black cellophane against the coloured sky.

Our first stop was Luxor, where the ruins of Karnak are, the ancient capital of Upper Egypt. Our hotelier offered us a joint but Matt refused, fearing that the hotelier would then turn us over to the police and we'd have to pay thousands for our release while he collected a share. I learned from the hotelier three days later that he only hoped had sex with the both of us.

Everywhere we went, young men walked in pairs, hand in hand, as Egyptian friends do. They stared with unabashed lust and awe at Matt's red blond hair and muscular build. He could have had anyone he wanted, and I would have let him since I had accepted that we weren't really dating, but he was afraid of getting VD. On our way back from the Valley of the Queens we chatted with the proprietor of a refreshment stand, a handsome guy our age, who had good English from working in Switzerland two years. He offered us his special treat, "Egyptian hot milk", with a wink. Matt pretended to be interested and then asked if I would be. I said I might if he was, so we arranged to meet him at a certain location in town later. When it came time to meet him, Matt told he me never had any intention of going, that he had done it so that I could have fun. Perhaps he hoped I'd need or expect less of our relationship afterwards, or maybe he just wanted justification to accuse me of being a slut later. I left without discussion but I didn't go to the meet up point. I returned half an hour later and told him the proprietor did not show up.

There were no other incidents like that in Luxor, or later in Aswan, though we often took refuge in the 'winter gardens' of European hotels to escape the incessant attentions of admirers. On the train back north to Cairo, three handsome youths in their early 20s chatted us up, boldly praising our beauty, asking us to sing songs to them and begging us to be their friends. They wanted us to get off at Asyut and stay with them in their dorms at the university. The conductor came along and ordered them to leave us alone, probably as much for their protection as for ours. I suspect if he hadn't, Matt would have tried to get me to leave with them when we arrived in Asyut.

When we returned to Cairo, I only stayed two more nights. I tried to convince Matt to come with me to Israel, but he wanted stay a couple more days and then cycle through the Sinai Desert first. I asked if he wanted me to stay with him a couple more days, but he didn't want that either.

On our last night I cuddled with him on his bed and tried to get him to make love a final time, but he was deliberately cold and unresponsive. Tired of his callous oscillations, I gently pulled away without a word and crawled into my own bed on the other side of the room. What are you doing? he asked, suddenly concerned and sounding like a frightened child. Going to sleep, I replied. Then he became tearful and begged me to return to his bed. He held close me all night, but as I was leaving in the morning he was polite and mechanical, as though saying goodbye to a work colleague or client. That was the last I saw of him for almost a year.

Story of Matt , Part 8 - Crete, Part 2

If that first night in Sitia wasn't the worst night of my life it was close. It was certainly the worst night of our time together.

I marched into town knowing how hurt Matt would be when he found out I left without him, but had I stayed with him it would have been a miserable time too, and he wouldn't see the need to change the way he was treating me. It was a drastic action, and I was afraid I had gone too far. I knew he might never forgive me but I couldn't turn back.

I wanted nothing more than to forget the pain I felt and the pain I was causing him. At dinner I ordered a small bottle of Ouzo worth seventy cents and a 750ml bottle of retsina worth fifty cents and proceeded to become drunker and sicker than ever before (or since).

I am not blessed with the ability to forget everything by the next morning after a drunken binge, although my memories are as altered as my vision was. I had the company of at least four other young travelers, a Brit, an Aussie, a German and an Irish lass, and we seemed to have fun until well into the night. They decided to do a stroll along the beach, but I was too wasted to keep up with them. I remember sitting on a log wondering what to do next.

Eventually I made it to solid ground and staggered up the main street towards the hostel, stopping into a café along the way. The old men, who to spend their days silently people watching from the café, all stood out of concern went I staggered in the door. I knew then I was seriously fucked up.

Somehow I made it back to the hostel, stopping at the primitive washroom to be sick. Then I stumbled into the dorm. I found Matt's bed, sat down and started explaining apologetically. His sole concern was getting me to keep quiet and not wake up everyone in the room. I found my own bunk, fortunately a lower one, and passed out.

The next morning I was up at the crack of dawn to use the washroom again. It was a total mess. I had apparently missed the toilet completely the night before. It was a terribly difficult chore in my condition but I spent half an hour cleaning up the mess the best I could before anyone else woke up.

Matt was furious with me, and although I was embarrassed and apologetic, I was still furious with him too. We stayed in Sitia another two days while I was too sick to travel. We were both too choked to talk about our feelings. The fact that he stayed with me, and that we traveled on together another three weeks, told me that he cared. He stayed right beside me the two days, in spite of the tensions between us. By the second day, we were talking politely and he was even sweet and caring at times.

Early the next day, still feeling the effects of my $1.20 hangover, I set out with him on a rural side road over the hills to the south coast. By noon we reached the port of Ierapetra. We caught the attention of a young local man about our age when we stopped for lunch. He struck up a conversation and insisted, against our objections, on buying us a big jug of Greek wine. The smell of it was enough to turn my stomach but he was seriously offended when I said I was too sick to have any. He toasted us with "Yamos!", which ironically means for 'to your health'. I pretended to drink it, spitting it back into my glass every second sip, and whenever he was distracted I poured half my glass into Matt's.

To save me from a fate worse than death, Matt eventually drank it all. For once he rode behind me after lunch as we continued west along the south coast. Alcohol brings out the sides of our personalities we usually keep a lid on. With Matt, it always made him horny. Suddenly I felt his hand caressing my back and ass as we rode along. He had pulled up beside me and had the biggest foolish grin on his face. I was grateful for his attention but also horrified that someone might see.

The road began a long and steep climb away from the coast at the beach town of Myrtos. Given Matt's condition, both his drunkenness and his horniness, I figured it was best to stop for the night. I left him fumbling with the bike lock while I booked a room for two. I filled his arms with our bags so he wouldn't fondle me until we got to the room, and once inside I helped him undress and guided him to the shower. As soon as he was out and toweling himself off in slow motion, I jumped into the shower myself. I was pretty horny too by this point, but in the time it took to shower off my sweat and return to the bed, he was already dead to the world and snoring like a lawn mower.

Early the next morning, we set out under grey skies to tackle the massive hill on the road that led north and inland away from Myrtos. Matt was his old self again, regrettably, and he powered swiftly up the hill and out of sight. I shifted down to my lowest gear but the chain slipped back up to second gear repeatedly. I pushed harder on the shift lever to lock it down. The plastic lever snapped off in my hand and the chain jammed between first and second gear. I couldn't even roll the bike so I waited patiently at the bottom of the hill.

It was close to an hour before Matt came looking for me. He had waited at the top for almost that long and he was angry to find me still at the bottom. He took out his tools and locked my derailleur into second gear for the rest of the trip. That would allow me to climb hills but I would never be able to get up a decent speed on the flat stretches.

The road we were on headed back to Iraklion on the north shore. We wanted to stay on the south side, which required us to take unpaved mountain roads for half the day to reach our destination. At points it was so rough that even riding at walking speed was nearly impossible. The vinyl-coated cardboard panniers couldn't stand the vibrations and tore away from their straps. Matt had a couple spare bungee cords we used to strap them onto the top of my rear rack. We hit pavement again when we reached a broad valley that led to the west. We followed it to the town of Mires.

We stayed two nights in Mires, using the day between to ride, baggage-free, to the famous hippy town of Matala on the south coast, where Joni Mitchell wrote the song "Carey". On the way, we passed an orchard of orange trees. Matt climbed the wall and picked a couple for later. Having no bike bag to keep them in, he stuffed them inside his cycling shorts where they settled nicely around his crotch. We glided by the Minoan ruins of Festos, where a bus load of school children were waiting for a tour. The boys were kicking a ball around the courtyard while the girls sat in row along the top of a wall facing the road. One by one I watched their mouths drop open in awe as they checked out Matt's crotch. As soon as we rounded the next corner we started laughing so hard that we had to stop riding for a while.

Matala was fascinating, a throw-back to the end of the 60s with period western rock music blaring out of hippie paraphernalia shops. Most of the "homeless" travelers had made camp in natural sea caves on the hill sides that the Nazis had expanded for defense during WWII. On its small, rocky beach we ate our lunch before returning to Mires. The oranges were sour, in spite of their lovely aroma (!), so we didn't eat them.

On our last day on the island we rode back to Iraklion, after having a delicious breakfast of octopus and potato stew at a local restaurant. The three engaging elderly women who ran it spoke no English but they insisted that we learn and practice the Greek word for bicycle - podilado I think. That put me on a natural high, so when our road bent to the north uphill and into a fierce headwind with intermittent rain showers, I was singing. Matt, on the other hand, was in a foul mood. How things change in just a week!

I returned the cursed bike. The bike rental shop owner was disheartened when I laid out the broken gear shift lever, the two torn panniers and the kick stand that had also snapped off by then. I am not sure whether later he was angry with me or if he realized that buying crap wasn't worth it. We didn't stick around long enough to find out.