July 8/08 Poop Freeze (0)

Posted 8 July, 2008 in canine moments

I saw this on “The Soup” and I thought is was so revolutionary that every dog owner should know about this product!

July 7/08 Miss Retro Virus Rubs Herself to New Heights. (3)

Posted 7 July, 2008 in ramblings

Ok, I know it’s summer, but thank god I have this site published on Gay Guide Toronto where the traffic is very high. In fact I’m pretty unaware of the reality of exactly how much I’m baring all to my fellow Torontonians and others. However here, I guess it’s because I just want to write. I’m not into the business of self-promotion, if you wanna come, come, not, then don’t.

My ADD-like mind has a hard time going to a million sites to visit. I’m thinking of putting a bunch on a RSS feeder so I can have many sites all in one place, that may help. Lately I’ve been getting into the Canadian political blogs.

Superficial as it may be, I’m into big just about everything, from cocks, to televisions, to buildings. Although not essential, there are many great smaller models of anything you can find that or who has a state of grandeur.

A friend sent me this photo of the sky of Toronto in about five years time with all the projects on the slate completed. I’ve heard everywhere from 135 to 200 buildings over 35 stories being built in the Greater Toronto Area, which is a pretty populous area spanning quite a distance.

Even though we are not a city with the stature that comes anywhere close to New York or Chicago, I’m loving the new 80 story building at Yonge & Bloor, among others.

It’s most likely, given the urban deprivation one aquires when growing up in Winnipeg that spurs this kind of interest in buildings. I think the first building is going up downtown since 1991 in Winnipeg, at its 22 stories. The tallest building is apx. 34 stories I think.

The never ending sense of underwhelment (ok there were 2620 references to the spelling of overwhelment, so I think I’m tredding on very dicy spelling territory here) in Winnipeg causes me to almost want to rub myself anytime I see a building over let’s say 34 stories.

I know, it’s not a pretty image of me standing at King and Bay looking at the office towers, but you know, everyone has their oddities.

July 6/ 08 I don’t know what to put for a title. (1)

Posted 6 July, 2008 in trauma

Here is a picture of my friend. Her funeral was yesterday. I think she was all of 18 or so. Another friend here may actually fly all the way there as there custom is to have a week of mourning. I don’t have the constitution to fly all that distance, stay for a couple days, fly all the way back, and then go to Mexico City a week and a bit later.

This is another reminder that we should never take our lives for granted. Even with HIV, a good reminder of this principle I find myself going into default with a sense of entitlement to everything I have, taking in all in as if it were meant to be, as if there were no other possibilities.

I was spending so much time worrying about the future a while back, that I forgot about today, this moment. Lord knows, with what we are learning about HIV, I’ll probably die of a heart attack or cancer.

Finally I’ll be able to cross off the “Cs” for diseases or infections I’ve gotten. I’m working on getting entire alphabet, why as recently I got to scratch off the letter “S.”

Seriously, it is now being said that we are experiencing the kinds of age-associated conditions of a person about ten-years older. So that means I’ve got a body of a 53-year-old.

And by the likes of it, I’m getting about as much sex as as a 53-year-old as well.

Mind you, I have a lovely little unexpected moment yesterday when I finally met a cute lad with whom I’d been chatting for quite sometime, and managed to push through my protective, somewhat distant safety barrier.

Isn’t it amazing how I can turn any subject around and make it all about me. Here I was writing about my poor dear friend who I am going to miss terribly, and I ended with how I got laid.

Now that’s talent.

I’ll miss ya Claudine.

July 5/08 Email Subject line: Chantel and Claundine Dead! (1)

Posted 5 July, 2008 in ramblings, trauma, travel, recovery

For real this is the subject line, and I’ll get to that in a moment.
Last night I went to the video store and was challenged to find anything that peaked my interest. In the end I decided to go for old and camp, Live and Let Die.

Up until recently I’ve never been much of a Bond fan, except some of the originals. Never having seen this one, I figured, why not? Little did I know this was going to turn into a Black Exploitation 007 film. I don’t know, I just wasn’t in the mood for campy pimped out black dudes with lines such as the black taxi driver:

For 20 bucks, I’ll drive you to the Klu Klux Klan!

Renting this movie was my attempt at diverting attention from the fact that a friend, really one of our Rwandan family had died in a bus accident along with another colleague who works at the same NGO.

Claudine was a beautiful young women, not even 20, HIV positive, who was looking after her aging and sick mother. She was planning on going to university, a friend here was going to raise the money required for her to go. She had a boyfriend who loved her dearly, a pharmacist technician student. She learned to be quite proficient in English. Her emails were always welcomed.

My last memories of her were of being out for Indian food at a posh restaurant. She was sitting across from me gigling about how funny it was to her to see fellow Rwandans dressed up in Indian costumes. The last time I saw here was at the Mille Collines (the hotel where hotel Rwanda took place) where she came to say good bye while we waited for the airport hotel bus. Her mother was sick with malaria. I gave her fifty dollars to buy medication for her mother, slipping it into her hands right before we left for the airport.

It was hard not to feel shocked and saddened by this recent event. She had her whole life ahead of her. Another friend was in a bus accident seven months ago, but was lucky to only have a broken arm, eight others died in that accident.

I forget what other dangers exist in my friends’ lives outside of getting food, housing and medicine.

Fortunately I will be seeing many of my Rwandan “family” in Mexico City. The nice thing is that I can pass on some money to get to Claudine’s mother to help her out.

In the past I shut down around death. Now I practice “non-resistance to what is” and allow myself to feel down, not to shut it down. It is “what is” and life must go on. What it does is motivate me to do the most we can to help our Rwandan friends have the best conditions to live in as possible as we just never know what’s around the corner.

It didn’t occur to me until just now the irony in the choice and title I selected.

July 3/08 Bonne Fête Québec (5)

Posted 3 July, 2008 in Uncategorized, a wee tale

Today marks the 400 anniversary of Quebec City. Of course, we cannot have any kind of anything with Quebec in the sentence without there being people bitching and moaning about what the significance of today is. I must say I did love the indignation of Pauline Marois - the party leader of the souvernists/separatists (depending on where you are sitting) party, le Parti Québécois - standing up in the Assemblé Generale demanding that the Premier of the province, Jean Charest answer the question of “Is there only one ‘people’ of Canada.”

Even more fun to watch was how the town wratched up by those in the Parti Québécois as a result of our Governer General visiting Paris to meet Sarkozy. For all of you non-Commonwealth folk, the Governer General represents the Queen of England. The land of the conquers, and then she had the audacity to point out that the “french fact” in Canada extends beyond the boundaries of Quebec.

There isn’t much our Prime Minister does, but I did truly love the way he co-opted the Québec celebrations into the founding of Canada, and not Quebec.

Anyway, my first trip to Quebec was when I 17 in my last year of high school. We stayed in Chateau Frontenac after having visited Montreal. Since I was the only who spoke any French, I was charged with buying drugs from my classmates, mostly hash while in Montreal. Myself and a friend found a guy in Vieux Québec who was selling Mescaline.

I bought some, even though we didn’t know how you did it, and how much. You know how resourceful teenagers can be, we just winged it and hopped for the best; snorking it seemed to be the best way to go.

All the way home back to Winnipeg both of us were dashing into the washroom. This was the first trip in my life when I was completely depressed to return back home to Winnipeg. It was a feeling that would only get stronger and stronger until the point would come where I couldn’t take it anymore.

So my first memories of Quebec are those of drug dealers, illicit drugs, my gay French teacher - are there any other kind of male French teachers? - and the complete and uncomparable feeling of dread returning home resulting in many attemps to get out of that hell hole (my apologies to my fellow Winnipegers).

June 30/08 Politics (1)

Posted 30 June, 2008 in ramblings

At a BBQ last Saturday, I was with an group of Canadians and Americans. I was saying that our Prime Minister was merely a lighter shade of Bush, and in fact, many jokingly call him a “shrug.”

One American friend who is married to a Canadian here and works for an airline and routinely flies back and forth from NYC thought that Harper was no were near as bad as Bush.

I argue that he is for many many reasons. In fact I had written a post about this with many examples and it accidentally got deleted.

But here is one for sure. You see, Harper doesn’t like facts. Facts get in the way of feelings, and we know that feelings is where it’s at. Does any of this sound familiar. In fact Harper doesn’t like facts so much he got rid of the position National Science Adviser and the well respected British journal Nature published an editorial about the Canada’s Conservative government “Science in Retreat.”

Here are some more facts Harper doesn’t trust: Crime. Statistics Canada says crime is going down. But then again they are in bed with the apologists. This is what he as been saying at conservative gatherings across the country:

“Canadians feel less safe than they once did … Some try to pacify Canadians with statistics. Your personal experiences and impressions are wrong, they say; crime is really not a problem. These apologists remind me of the scene from the Wizard of Oz when the wizard says, ‘pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.’ But Canadians can see behind the curtain. They know there’s a problem.”

“… It’s one thing that they, the criminals do not get it, but if you don’t mind me saying, another part of the problem for the past generation has been those, also a small part of our society, who are not criminals themselves, but who are always making excuses for them, and when they aren’t making excuses, they are denying that crime is even a problem: the ivory tower experts, the tut-tutting commentators, the out-of-touch politicians. ‘Your personal experiences and impressions are wrong,” they say. ‘Crime is not really a problem.’ I don’t know how you say that. I don’t know how you tell that to the families of the victims we saw on the screen today. These men, women and children are not statistics…”

Sounding more familiar?

In fact, all the heaps of science and research for out Safe Injection Site for addicts in Vancouver couldn’t prove Harper and the Minister of Health’s feelings wrong either. Despite the mounds of postive outcome in research, they still had to do more. This way they could find scientists who would come to their conclusions. The only problem, none would compromise their integrity, and in the end, as will all things with this governemnt the only way to stop them is to take them to court. The BC Court has ruled that it is unconstitutional to close it, leaving Harper having one of his childish hissy fits when he doesn’t get his way.

Then the Supreme Court ruled that the fact Harper muzzled the Canadian Wheat Board from defending itself when they are trying to dismantle it unconstitutional as well, leaving Harper once again to have a public hissy fit stating he’d “roll over anyone who got in his way.”

I could go on and on from muzzling anyone from his party to speak with the media, the remarkable lengths they will go to discredit and fire anyone who gets in their way. The ideological cuts to any kind of minority rights programs, status of women, and the budget shell game that ultimately saw Ontario’s AIDS Service Organization’s budget go from over 1 million to just over 600,000 dollars.

Shall I go on? I still maintain he’s a small shrub, and given his outbursts when he doesn’t get his way, a shrub suffering from erectile dysfunction.

June 27/08 Vogue (1)

Posted 27 June, 2008 in Uncategorized

June 26/08 The Queen is Back (2)

Posted 26 June, 2008 in Uncategorized

This may or may not be my last post before Pride. So what could be more gay than Donna Summer.  And lucky for us she has released a new album, her first in 17 years, just last month, just in time for Pride.

As many, I grew up with her. While living in Thunder Bay, 12 years old, I babysat for out neighbors, a young hip couple of the 1970s. While going through their records I discovered their Donna Summer collection.

Prior to this I didn’t know who she was. Her first hit, Love to Love You Baby was a scandal for her at the time, and it caught my attention.

I fell in love with her. I’m not sure what it is. But is there something encoded in our genes that say “You are gay, you love disco, you love Donna Summer, you must Village People, you must hate sports……”

Here I was, knowing nothing of the gay world and without any outside influence what so ever, I was attracted to all things gay.

Fuck, I never knew that the Village People were a gay group until my dad made a comment.

In high school, I was part of the head banger crowd, loved 1960s rock, smoked a lot of pot to Pink Floyd. I learned that my “gay” tastes were to be hidden.

I could not let people know that I listened to Donna Summer, even in the post-disco era. In Jr. High I loved Gary Numan, he expressed that dark alienation I felt from the world. The man couldn’t be any more gay either.

In high school I also love Rough Trade. Totally gay! Anyway, I still love Donna. She’s one of the few performers who actually sounds amazing live. Madonna is an amazing visual and creative artist, but when I hear her perform live without the help of background tracks, it dosen’t add up to the recording.

June 25/08 Sugar is my new drug. (1)

Posted 25 June, 2008 in ramblings, recovery

Cheesecake is my new drug! After a few months of refining my diet to exclude the best I can rice and potatoes. I’ve had to become creative with legumes and other wonderful things. But then after I’ve heard once too many, “You’ve lost weight haven’t you?” I feel like I have permission to go “fuck it” and consume entire cheesecakes in one sitting.

But really, President’s Choice cheesecakes are so small. I’d say they really are best two portions, or one Miss Retro Virus portion.

I’ve managed to eat two cheese cakes - the Sara Lee Cherry Cheesecake was the downfall leading to my root canal as I was in pain for a half an hour after - and a couple deep dish pies, as well as a few 2 litre bottles of pop.

Maybe it’s a pre-pride sugar rush.

Oh and by the way, my Larry Cramer rant was not about have the occasional casual encounter, it was more about this gay/drug/sex culture where cocks are first and foremost, and those to whom they are attached to are completely secondary. The only thing that matters is satisfying a need - and I do think that those who none-stop cruise the internet, tweaking or not, and are obsessed with sex where it comes to point it’s a contact sport are missing something in their lives.

If someone really cared about who they were entertaining would they openly muse about whether or not they put unrequested GHB in their guest’s drink, or hold a towel up so I couldn’t see buddy smoking crystal. All of this when I had been very explicit about drug and their use around me.

I remember thinking guys like me were boring, straight-laced. Being confronted with what was once was is the trigger to unpleasant feelings.

Really what do I expect from these guys? What was that AA saying about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results?
I’ve know way to many who have admitted that, including myself post-facto.

Now, if cheesecake had been involved, I would have just gotten fat, and not syphilis!

June 24/08 Revelations (3)

Posted 24 June, 2008 in a wee tale

You know I always think the blame game is a waste of time. But I’ve had so little sex in the last few months that I couldn’t help but be perplexed.

I had a chat with one of the guys I get together with, he went down to Hassle Free and the doc insisted what we thought might have been a symptom wasn’t.

My memory kept going over the last couple of months. I get the vdrl done every time I get bloodwork, so I know this occured after March. “Think, think!” I repeated in my mind as I left to head off to renew my drivers license this morning.

And then it came to me. In April, there were those two occasions that I wrote about where despite the fact that I made it clear that I did not do drugs nor wanted to be around them, I hooked up with two guys who did precisely just that.

These two where the classic “let’s get fucked up and fuck as many guys as possible, and fuck condoms.”

One of these stupid fucks tells me with this gaze of a deer caught in headlights, “I was fucking this guy and then afterwards he asks me if I am positive and he’s negative. I assumed he was positive.”

I think I freaked him out, as I told him he’d better be careful as criminal charges are being laid against those who do such things these days.

The next day his profile was removed.

What angered me the most with my encounter with him was the moment when he suggested he may have put GHB into my drink. He says this to me like it’s nothing.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I’ve consumed literally litres of the the stuff and I know what it tastes like, and what it feels like. There was no GHB in the drink.
The other guy interpreted no PNP as in “him” not doing drugs, but having his friend smoke crystal in front of me somehow seemed appropriate for the occasion.

I know that shit happens, and when you fuck anyone you take the chance of picking something up, but this has not officially gotten me over anyone who takes life, sex, drugs, illness in such a cavalier manner.

These experiences were sucking all the positive energy out of me when they happened, and continued to do so for the next two months.

I am now officially over anyone who insists on BB, raw, sex parties, uses sex as a leisure sport, who’s lives revolve around cock and drugs.

For some reason I thought I was missing out on something. I dabbled in my old ways minus the drugs, and look what it got me.

It’s strange, but I’m feeling pissed off. Pissed off at myself, pissed of at this culture that we have where is seems to be ok to fuck 100 guys in a weekend, do crystal, and then complain about being stigmatized and marginalized by epidemiologists and others who may want to blame us for spreading infections around.

What makes me angry is I bought it. I bought the notion that this was ok, that this normal and a healthy expression of sexuality. I bought the validation and the self-worth when told I was “hot” or whatever. Not that this is a compliment from anyone tweaking. For them they’d call a pylon “hot” as they sat down on it.

Oh my, I think I was just channeling Larry Kramer.

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