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Oh God Here I Go: Dog, Choke on Liver
August 26th, 2007
Love sick has been bequeathed onto the partner. It couldn’t have been from the high-class atmosphere as we’ve blend in quite well at Sotto Sotto on Avenue rd. & Bloor Street. It wasn’t the sebas house special either because we’ve attacked it down to carcass (thank God for quality foods). The blame arrow points at the summer idled-mood that has worn its welcome—feeling as if every magnified crumb is blown up into one big bite of drama.
Being the caring boyfriend that I am, I ran to Dominion on College Street underground nearly wiping out at the bottom of the escalator—all for soup. Making a quick stop at the pharmacy to get some drugs, calling every few hours like a nagging nurse to check up on the sick one. Two days later, miraculously managed to lug their body out of bed and gallivant with girlfriends to a leather-fest shenanigan on Church Street. Without even considering the fact: Hey! Wait a minute I have a boyfriend sitting at home that can’t stop thinking whether I’m okay or not. Comfortable anyone? I’d say.
Not that I’m psychotic enough to be incognizant about relationship leashes (short ones = bad) you would think I would get first dibs on the post recuperation stage. Even a nimrod would know that I am entitled to have some of the newly regained energy from them. Communication is key, that’s why I’ve risked the ‘clingy factor’ by unleashing my iratenes and the productivity in the fight remains a challenge. Could it be my own dramatic doings that I’ve entangled my own leash to the point of smothering myself in this relationship?
Real relationships changes you and it takes two to mke it. If I hadn’t changed for the good then I would’ve fled from the slightest feeling of being chopped liver (no, not the good kind at Le Papillon).
Oh God Here I Go: Duos in Sweet Breeze
August 19th, 2007The mark of my twenty something birthday was splurged at a fancy patio gathering at Remy’s in Yorkville. This year it’s cottage weekend in Catchacoma Ontario. Along with other couples we’ve embarked on a trip that not only celebrates my getting older, but the nearing conclusion of summer O’seven.
This getaway allowed me to exercise me as a couple in a group dynamic situation. I’ve never been one of the adults I’ve always been the grown kid at the children’s table. This weekend was definitely virgin territory in two parts: Joining the adult table and the first cottage vacation as a couple. The weekend has let me experience my relationship in a whole new light along with other couples overwhelmed by mother-nature, because this City boy is deprived of sweet cottage breeze.
Within the group dynamics there is ‘the host couple’, ‘the shy couple’, ‘the loud obnoxious couple’ and ofcourse ‘the interesting gay couple.’ Knowing that my duo is not exactly one of those boys nor are we typically one of the girls either, allowed us to get creative together without the usual interruptions of technology. Hand paddling on boogie boards to the island across from the cottage, pacing together in the jet-propelled-water-vehicle infested lake. The next day, improvising a western inspired breakfast for everyone, that was praised shortly after being wolfed down by us weekend drunkards. Active outdoor activities together are always good, like biking on hill-y trails shirtless, the perspiration that might as well be an aphrodisiac. At night everyone cozied-up by the fire sitting on cottagemade benches with sticky remains of smores from the previous bonfire. We all shared a quiet moment gazing at the milky-way luminously above us.
Cottage weekend is like a perfect cream for the City itch (the bored kind of itch). Even though I don’t have my very own convenient two-hour drive hideaway—I know it’s just one person away from renting it for a weekend. There’s still time for a sequel.
Oh God Here I Go: Excavating The EXcess
August 12th, 2007While the lover goes out and about with their day, I stay in bed feeling nauseous from the partying the night before. It’s easy to seek out blame as to why I’m running to the bathroom every twenty minutes, but I know for a fact it wasn’t the food at Hair Of The Dog. It was one of those close-knit looking restaurant that we’d always pass by and tell ourselves “we should go there sometime” I wasn’t duped by the crazy romantic lighting this time, it was the hummus appetizer that won me over.
Lying in bed alone with my stomach topsy-turvy I took the opportunity to feed my curiosity. Being at his house alone what was I hoping to find? I gathered all of my strength to walk to the living room, turned his laptop on resting it on my thighs as if I’m about to crack a code. Waiting for the sound of dangling keys I became relieved that the visited sites was as normal as you can get: face book links, google and youtube etc. My curiosity then leads me to the pictures folder with carefully labeled titles. Inevitably I come across something I knew I wouldn’t stomach. A certain fix I knew wouldn’t have been as appetizing as the dinner last night. Seeing photos of the ex at the beach drew me to the conclusion that it may be the same beach we went to last summer. Up to the last picture of a headshot of them lying in bed, lips redder than normal did not go down smoothly as the hummus, which escalated my nausea to indifferent anger.
I’m not one to justify someone else’s way of dealing with their past, maybe it was all too special to tuck away the memorabilia’s in a box and bury deep in the closet. Maybe some memories deserve some acknowledgement, to freeze that moment in a photograph where they could look back and say, that moment was special. I later confront and confess about my discoveries, but the answer didn’t calm the war in my stomach.
This miniscule photo evidence that takes up 240kb on a laptop might as well be a virus that none of us ‘current boyfriends or girlfriends’ whose dominance in the picture is practically spilling out, really need. I shall flush it all down along with my rejected excess.
Oh God Here I Go: The Popping of Anniv-Cherries
August 5th, 2007
Preparing for an official date (strictly dinner no hanky-panky) consists of the following: The googling of restaurants, scouting the actual place like a mad man because I prefer to review the place for myself. The making of reservations, confirming days ahead, the vetoing of numerous outfits at the mall, the search for the perfect shoes gruelingly trying to coordinate myself as a put together package. All this brought me to think if this is a date, how much of a Groomzilla would I be?
Perhaps it was the lighting and the quiet but trendy atmosphere at Izakaya restaurant that got me all sleepy-eyed as if I’ve OD’ed on romance once again. It’s been so hot out lately that the breeze from the patio, during dessert coated me with such dreaminess that I almost forgot it was actually me on a perfect date. Trying to contain myself while I yell out “ding ding ding score!” I cheered myself on mentally.
The anticipation and butterflies can finally rest as my relationship anniversary cherry has officially been popped. The dinner at Izakaya restaurant of quality small-portioned foods, candlelight, saké, followed by a late-night chatter over dessert and tea at Zelda’s concluded the night as perfection. Followed by a “close your eyes” surprise of my favorite bouquet of sunflowers accentuated with babies-breath. This caught me completely off-guard like a winning beauty pageant with their hands over their mouths—I felt like it was my time to shine aside the sunflowers being the new roses, and since guys don’t normally get flowers. Well, we do now ladies and gentlemen.
Call it torture, but the only real classy way to end a perfect date is to go home on separate beds. As much as you want to pounce each other by the end of the night, and just because you’ve celebrated the mark of 365 days together, you can still preserve some sexual appetite and mark that day as special good ol’ fashioned style.
Oh God Here I Go: Undamning The Village of The Damned
July 29th, 2007Wellesley Station automatically triggers my paranoia of people’s pre-conceived notion of who I am just because I am there, with an automatic flashing rainbow lit label exposing the letters: GAY. While I walk along the sidewalk feeling invisible rocks being thrown at my back, while the horde of men displaying themselves in front of Timothy’s or on the sidewalk steps whose wandering eyes makes me feel like I’m being picked apart slowly, until there’s nothing left to judge.
Some Gay.com profiles announcing “Hate queens who hang in the village” or “not into the scene U b not 2” Because everyone knows that the ever-so-admirable straight guy unexposed to Sodom and Gomorrah persona is the ideal catch. And the ones baiting themselves in the village are dirty peasant whores. In a supposedly ‘gay place’ there’s a lot of hate and tension towards it, the same hate I had towards myself as a naïve closeted chicken. What was I suppose to think of it? Yet when it’s time to party, anyone who’s gay, curious or a hetero just out to have fun, comes crawling back to the village like a slavish boy bereft of a master—because there’s no place else to truly let loose and mean business on the dance floor.
Growing out of the delusional paranoid teenage boy phase, maybe its experience and being a step closer to total self-acceptance, I’ve grown accustomed to the harmless village lifestyle. Learning that those invisible rocks were just pieces of my insecurities thrown by me. Joining the other side of the nonchalant fence, I am not a tourist who comes to the village just to point and laugh and imposingly be ashamed of it. That part of the block of my very own City is a symbol of a place in myself that I’ve accepted, and there’s no harm in that.
Oh God Here I Go: Optimist Ideal Romance Overdose
July 22nd, 2007
Prozac Nation author Elizabeth Wurtzel tells us how consumed she was by the love she had for her boyfriend. The level of her obssesiveness brought her to imagine what it would be like to drink her lover’s blood, so that he would become a part of her forever.
My fresh conversion to optimism I wonder; is this what love does to you?
In every serious relationship there will be a situation where one stays home and one goes out. One blissfully flies through the ‘love-high’ while one tastes vomit creep up at the back of their throat. Tonight, I’m the guy that stayed home.
The single behavior rushed back and I contemplated on what I should do with my free time. After having rummaged the video store on Church and Wellesley for their wide selection of quality unheard-of movies, I began to question; whatever happened to those relaxed night-ins, when we would stay in on a Friday night while I attempt to grace the kitchen with my limited cooking skills and enjoy it? Have a couple of beers with just the two of us? When did friends-nights become mandatory? Have I missed a memo or have I just become so consumed in my newly found love that I forgot to come down from this high while I soberly develop crazy thoughts like Wurtzel.
Saving myself from an optimist ideal romance overose, turn down the blues tunes and skip the opera themed film. Because the times I’m alone is the perfect time to appreciate friends—remember them? Before I become the very example of every women’s magazine dating no-no’s, and develop a controlling crazy boyfriend quality, I shall switch my energy to other things while the need for space happen.
Oh God Here I Go: Cheap Date
July 16th, 2007Close to being completely broke, fresh out of University and jobless are some of the things I share in common with the one I’m dating these days. We’ve traded in our lavish dinner-night-outs from last winter and spring, when we would haphazardly swipe our debit cards and whip out cash like a cowboy ready for a challenge.
The conversations about possible things to do that involve little or no money, now actually applies: Cloud reading on the balcony, taking advantage of the view from home certainly beats sitting at an over packed patio with tables side by side making it impossible to escape from the scorching smoggy streets of downtown Toronto. Aimless walks around neighborhoods and streets outside of our daily routine—a simple detour broadens your view of Toronto. Grab some friends, pack lunch and head down for Beach Volleyball at Kew Beach. Nervous as we shoved our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in recycled ziplock bags, and pickles in Tupperware containers because most people wouldn’t even dare go to that extent for a light lunch. It’s more ideal to crash at a nearest pub or restaurant. The mild embarrassment when you first expose your packed lunch quickly wears off, when you realize (surprise, surprise!) people are doing it too. If people can wolf down City hot dogs, rice and meat in TTC premises, shame is the last thing on my mind the next time I’m packing my lunch. Thank God for those movie rental coupon-books that I’ve received from family members that ran out of ideas to give me on special occasions. I appreciate them and am hanging onto the last few strips of deals by being wise about my movie selection, by trading in mindless popcorn blockbusters to an independent flick that may be worth to use my coupons on. With a little bit of cash and easy low-budget recipes in mind, we’d run to Dominion on Front street grab a cart and stroll down the isles, while we have our very first domestic related fight. Yes, I’d rather make a scene in a long grocery line, than stuck in line at a pretentious club.
It’s satisfying to know that the “I-need-wads-of-cash-to-impress” stage in the relationship has all been stripped away by the struck of reality. In a relationship, being financially limited strips away materialistic things and allows for time literally for just the two of you as you reach a whole new level.
