No Fucking Comment

Support your troops! No matter your opinion, the individual soldiers there are defending your values, fighting the good fight, rebuilding Iraq, one water bottle at the time!

Sailing and Smiling

I'm not a big fan of posting on that kind of news (the video link at the end of the article explains the situation quite well), but I still want to comment on this one.

The girl that died in this story is a stranger. I don't know her and won't pretend I do. Despite her dad being "well-known", I won't pretend the same of him, as it's a common mistake among "normal" people to think we know celebrities because we're familiar with their faces on our TVs.

Apparently, the girl had problems in her youth. Whatever. We don't even need to know that. What touched me in this whole story is the fact that she died doing something she had a passion for. As I said, I don't know her, but I would bet that everytime she was back in town, seeing family and friends, she'd talk about her life on the sea. That's where she discovered her life.

She went there, worked harder than any time before. She got sick, got blisters, injuries, and didn't sleep well. But she made friends, she saw incredible things and places. She did things and went places not many people will do and go.

Despite all the sufferings, when the opportunity arose, she went back. And again.

Then, she got swept away by a wave. She probably didn't die right away, realized how bad her condition was, but I'm quite sure she didn't panic right away. Why? Because it could happen. Obviously, it hit her pretty bad when she realized the precarity of her situation, but the girl had been working on a ship for a long while. She was not expecting it, she wasn't ready, but she wasn't surprised.

Dying is the ultimate bad luck, it's fucking bad on your family, on your friends, on you, mostly. But that woman was where she wanted to be, and died doing what she wanted to do. It isn't solace for anybody, I'm not trying to find any. I'm just saying that despite the sadness of it all, despite her extreme loneliness in the end, alone with her own thoughts, regrets and memories in the middle of a huge, empty body of water, despite all of this, she chose her path. And she had a blast.

Don't believe me? They showed us a bunch of pics in the last days: Some of her youth, taken from the media archives back when her dad played for the Montréal Canadiens. Her recent ones where all on a boat. Look at the picture below, at those eyes, this smile. Tell me she didn't find where she belonged.



Cheers, Laura Gainey, hope you found new adventures.

Time to pursue mine...

Don't try, you're not part of my life

I came to an interesting conclusion this weekend: The cool girl I just met is not for me.

Yeah, it looked for a little bit like I could have some interest for a girl. It was true.

But despite a nice facade, the interior is quite fade.

I don't mean it in a mean way, it's just not my taste. You might say I could do something about it. True enough. But it would need a lot of efforts, and there's some stuff you can't correct without busting through the walls, and I'm not willing to do that. I hate people trying to change others, and messing up with someone to get them closer to what you want is, I think, a proof that there's something wrong with the relationship, and with your expectations. Look somewhere else, there'll be place where both you're heart and your dick will feel right at home.

Why the house allegory? Simply because a person you might be interested in is almost just like a house. People that say that what counts is what you are inside are right, but not completely. When you buy a house, you'll live inside, and what should guide your choice are the features you'll find in there. But you have to notice the exterior, to be attracted enough to be drawn inside.

I got in, did the tour. There was a few things worth the look, but the whole didn't feel right. Took me a while to notice the flaws in the construction, had to go back a few times before signing the contract.

And I decided to abstain myself.

I need more than what she can offer me. Yeah, I can hear some friends telling me: "Wait Tup, you barely know her!"

True.

But I always had strong instincts, and I usually ignore them when it comes to girls. Recently, I have been a little more aware of those little signs, and it allowed me to get away from failures faster and faster. And I've been a decent observer enough of human attitudes, demeanor and speech to note subtle hints of future problems. I saw enough to realize it would eventually crash big time.

Like what? First level conversations, teenager-level love relationship, not the same sense of humour...at all, limited open-mindness, limited attention-span, limited life experience, potential guilt when it comes to sexuality...

Sex, no matter how you look at it, is VERY important in any relationship. As my friend J-S put it, an okay relationship with great sex had better chances on the long run than a great love relationship with poor sex. And we don't fit at all.

Or as Futurama's Philip J. Fry puts it in the episode "The Deep South":

Leela: Fry, are you alright? What happened?

Amy: What about Umbriel?

Fry: Well, it turns out I loved her, but I wasn't in love with her.

Amy: (whispering) Trouble in bed.

[Leela nods.]

And that's why I'm against keeping yourself for marriage.

Okay, it looks like I had a really bad time. Not really, those signs are subtle...yet. When I put together all the little hints, it draws a pretty damn good picture. I get what it says, and I don't like it.

So better stop it now than let this slip out of control.

She'll find a buyer. I'll find a house. I'm in no rush, I have a tent.



Time to call the owner...

*Sigh*

I might have stopped lying to others, but I didn't stop with myself.

The ex-girlfriend wrote to me the day I wrote my Not Your Usual Bible Story post, wanting to know how I've been. We had an email exchange. She said she put a stock value, so to speak, on the people in her life and apparently couldn't completely put me away, so she offered friendship.

I accepted, said I think we were now ready for it and that the emotional and physical distance (She's in Edmonton, Alberta, at the other end of the country) could be helpful to get an interesting perspective on each other's lives.

I accepted upon the condition that if she was ever to cut contact (She suddenly stopped writing to me twice in the past two years and I didn't get news from her in almost exactly a year until this new mail), I'd like to be at least warned.

But now, I'm having second thoughts. Sure, I'd like to keep in touch. Sure, I'd like to know what's going on with her life and I enjoy the possibility I could talk to her about events in mine.

But really, if I'm not pretending to be the grown-up, mature, intelligent and balanced men that I'm not, I immediately realize I want all of this in a completely different way: I want her!

Here it is. Might have been obvious to many, but not to myself.

I pretended I was okay with the breakup, that it was better that way (it really was). I accepted my friend dating my ex-gf despite the little treason I felt. Regarding their wedding, I happily gave my benediction when she asked me. (Seriously, what the fuck was that?) I tried to stay friends with both, to get over it.

But fuck! I didn't want her to get in bed with him! I'm still pissed that he suggested to break up when I asked him about advice on our relationship a few weeks before the end. That he then went on telling her about his feelings a week after we were over, all of us together, at her cottage! The only reason I felt nothing when she told me about her wedding was that my heart was already in shattered pieces in a dumpster along the Trans-Canada highway (I was in Banff, didn't bring my heart there, all the decisions were taken by my penis). When I stopped getting emails, I felt like a tortured man who doesn't get the candy nor the punch in the guts that comes with it. It was a good and bad thing all at once.

I'm aware it's over, I'm not living on false hopes. I went along with my life and I'm fucking conscious she's married to someone else, for better of for worse, until death, or divorce, set them apart.

Still, I managed to keep or introduce little reminders of my life with her in my current life. Not much, and nobody else can notice. But I do. I realized I re-bought some pieces of furniture we had. I re-appropriated for myself old habits and moments we used to share. That I bring dates to places that were our usual hanging spots. And despite not always doing those actions consciously, I'm sufficiently aware to hide my personal relationship with thoses places.

I met a girl recently and she's seriously great, but... I can't put ex-gf out of my mind, no matter how hard I try! Every girl is automatically compared to my old relationship. I must admit she had quite the timing. As soon as I met Katerine, there she was, writing me back!

Fuck!

I'm not asking for anything. I know I blew it. Obviously I'd love to go back and fix a few things or do it differently. But hey, I can't and I assume it.

But is it really sane for me to get just enough to be frequently reminded of how much I love her? Her emails were nice, but it still saddens me to see she's sharing a mortgage with someone else, that she took his name when hers was so much better. That one day they'll probably have kids. Do I want to be around?

[cheerfulness]Wow! That's fantastic! Congratulations![/cheerfulness]

[bitterness]...

Today, while at work. Only one person in my mind. All the thoughts coming along where past memories that can't be lived again. All I could, should have done back then. You start thinking that with all the changes, all your changes, it might have worked much better...or not at all.

I can't live in regrets. I can't be stuck in the past. Yes, I learned a lot from my past experiences, but some stuff, some people belong to the past. Good memories, great times, incredible girl, best time of my life. But it did also bring me the worst times in my life, and the worst of me: Lying, cheating, depression, sadness, sorrow.

I really, really hate it and would pay a shitload to make it somewhat different. But all of this, her and me, it's a verb conjugated to the past.

So thanks for everything Amy. Thanks for all you brought that is now part of me, thanks for the improvements you forced upon me, some long after we were done. Thanks for the surprise birthday party in November because I was away planting trees on my actual b-day. Thanks for running after me when I left, thanks for the great sex, for the kicks in the ass, for the laughs, for your damn boring TV shows I never got sick of watching with you. Thanks for the little attentions I loved having for you. Thanks for being so fucked up!

Thanks for your love

I love you, to all tenses.

Time to move on, or at least, to move away... I think.