While you were out

So, the elephant in this cyber-room is my 3 1/2 years of blogging silence. Why did I stop? Not sure, and reading the last few posts before I stopped offers no clues. Why did I start again and now? Connection. I am not on Facebook anymore; I don't tweet; I'm not a regular caller or e-mailer. I haven't even kept up reading the blogs of DemonDoll or Lulu or LolaDiana, despite the fact that they have gone on faithfully blogging all this time. Without it being my intention, my actions have threatened whatever connection I was maintaining with people I love. I want this back. And yet, I haven't told any of them I am blogging again. A part of me fears awaking the monster of obligation to claw at my shoulder; a part of me fears I will remember why I stopped and stop again, and push these loved ones even further away.

Still, here I am. For now. And before we move on, I feel like some kind of brief reckoning of the intervening years is in order to bring us up to speed. So, while I was out (not exhaustive and in no particular order),

• we moved apartments and now live mostly contentedly downtown, far from the Jerzys and paczkies of Roncesvalles, but far also from its quiet, leafy side-streets and cheap vegetable markets;


• I applied for Canadian citizenship, and expect that in six months or so, the lifelong taint of being a geo-political undesirable might finally rinse off, and I might finally get to travel again;


• I had my first surgery, a hernia repair that lasted about 40 minutes, during the weeklong recovery from which I read the egregiously awful Girl With the Dragon Tattoo;


• T had a terrifying stress-collapse that still makes my heart pound and that knocked him on his back for several months, but from which he recovered spectacularly, publishing his first novel, doing book tours, and spending two months in Europe researching his next novel on a Canadian arts grant;


• I enrolled last year, at the age of 38, in the University of Toronto, as a first-year undergraduate no less, to study History and Art History, with the goal of going all the way to a PhD and a career teaching Art History at the university level;


• I bought a pair of Vibram Five-Finger shoes, the horror of friends notwithstanding;


• I made one or two of the aforementioned friends;


• I became a vegetarian, because I could no longer conscionably balance the cheapness of a piece of meat with its ethical and environmental costs;


• my sister Vida died, but after a long and hopeless illness, so on some level I felt relief for her;


• I joined then quit Facebook, staging my exit as a three-day suicide countdown, which provoked more than one "friend" to quit me first;


• I got a cell-phone, only to hear the incredulous question, "You don't own a cell-phone?!" change to, "You don't own a smartphone?!";


• I designed this card for the 2010 "I Heart My LGBTQ Family" campaign — the last completed drawing I've done — while the prospect of me and T becoming parents has become increasingly less likely, by mutual assent;


• I have started learning German and, though hearing the language still makes me giggle a bit, I have developed a fascination for German culture, art and history that I never had before;


• my current (and soon-to-be-former, due to his placement ending) therapist informed me matter-of-factly that everything I have been experiencing of late is common "mid-life" stuff, leading to a series of tiny (figurative) explosions in my brain;
  


• I fell in love with Kristen Wiig; and
  


• I grew a beard, which I wear now in all seasons, with more than a little relish for its racializing and politicizing effects.

Toronto Shame

It's June again, so cue Toronto's latest Pride clusterfuck. After 2010's free speech brouhaha, this year's story is the refusal of the mayor to continue a 15-year tradition of marching in the parade, citing prior plans to spend the weekend at his family's cottage in the country. Some might say (and have) that this is his right, he is not explicitly obliged to attend, and a refusal should not be taken as proof of homophobia. I might concede if this person did not have a history of disparaging the queer community: as a city councillor, he was the only no-vote for accepting additional HIV funding from the province, dismissing the epidemic as a concern only for gay men and drug users; and as a mayoral candidate, he refused to distance himself from the endorsement of a virulently anti-gay preacher (yes, we have them here too), saying instead that when it came to the issue of marriage, they were of the same mind. Yet, this provincial Harkonnen became the mayor nevertheless, thanks to the amalgamation laws of Ontario's last Conservative premier (whose name is still a byword for catastrophe among social justice folks) that essentially handed the suburbs electoral sway over the city.

Queers and allies are understandably peeved. There was some shouting outside City Hall yesterday, and this delightful protest by a self-described "heterosexual housewife". This gives me hope that all is not lost, that Canadians won't suffer with characteristic demureness the recent wave of conservatism that is sweeping this country. But in the short term, it is worrying: as queer-bashings spike in this city, and stories of violence from other Pride celebrations on the continent trickle in, this mayor's position empowers a hateful minority and signals to them that their views are endorsed. Though I would like nothing better than to see him gorge on humble pie, I fear what ingredients may need to go into such a delicacy.

Broken-winged bird

I have done my finger a mischief. Middle finger, right hand. So frequently exercised once upon a time on the 101 South and sundry other arteries of the pumping Southland, as well as more recently, pedaling up Church Street. In fact, this finger was the recent cause of a severe upbraiding I received from a suited gentleman near my work. He, in his SUV, veered in front of my trundling bicyclette to make a left turn, and as I turned down the same street behind him, I gestured an assessment of his driving skills. He stopped his vehicle, exploded out and began screaming imprecations at my approaching self. Oddly, I stopped to listen, as if it weren't directed at me at all. It was early in the morning, mind, so neither of us was at his best. After hearing a good forty seconds of vein-popping invective (while his female companion shrank visibly in the passenger seat), I suggested, in as calm a tone as I could muster, that he treat himself to a soothing tea. This did little for his temper, but thankfully propelled him back into his vehicle, after a few parting gems. I continue to see this squire around the neighbourhood, always in the same grey suit, and we register recognition with our eyes, but nothing more.

But I digress. My finger, mischiefed. It's a bland story, almost embarrassing, yet due to the conspicuous splint I must wear for the next 5 weeks, one I am called upon to tell with frequency. So, I'll get it over with. Went to movies, felt an itch, got home, stripped clothes, Silkwood-showered, took clothes down to laundry room to dry at high temperature in case of bug-infestation, pressed the dry button with rather more force than was required, causing my finger to slip and the first joint to buckle rather painfully. Said joint would not return to its position, but lolled forward lazily instead, no matter how often I nudged it back into place. So, off to Emergency Room. Free health care makes one seek it out for the slightest thing, though it's by no means a breeze. Four hours and more than one heart-wrenching sideshow later, I emerged splinted and cowed. I will never underestimate a Maytag again.

The hand specialist I saw later in the week assured me it is an extremely common injury, and easy to do, though more often the result of basketball, construction work, martial arts — something rather more dynamic than laundering. He also says it will probably not fully straighten, so this finger will always be a tad crooked from now. (I just remembered my grandfather had rather crooked fingers; but this was due to several of them having been severed in a railway accident and then rather hastily sewn back on by a village doctor. I shit you not.) The worst thing about it is navigating the simplest of things, the things one takes entirely for granted, and realizing how integral that one digit is to such actions. A recent example: the bowl of spaghetti I made for my supper. You try twirling pasta onto a fork with a decommissioned bird-finger.