Serenity

I have a new friend. His name is Dan. Who what where why when how not important really. But he has described in his blog, our relationship as "a bubbly and serendipitous" one. I thought about that at the time that I read it and thought - yep - we are lucky to have met. But, I think its more than that. Serendipity, as I understand it, and you KNOW I looked it up, is being lucky enough to find something don't know that you need when you don't know you need it and aren't really looking for it.
I found a friend who I didn't think I needed. But that I want. He, likely, and I am speaking for him, doesn't need me around - he has his own friends. And that's just pretty cool to me.
I spend a lot of my life doing things out of obligation - whether real or imagined. I'm the kind of person who sends emails thanking people for coming to dinner parties that I give. I don't wait to be thanked - I thank in advance. I always write thank you cards for gifts. I always remember birthdays and Christmases, send presents for the kids teachers and live a life based upon polite obligation. Sometimes it can be a bit much but, at this point, 41 years down the road, its part of who I am.
Obligation to me is not an affectation either. I don't do it for attention or return of that duty but I do it the same way that I say bless you when someone sneezes - its automatic.
Those of us who live our lives in politeness tend to be the world's great givers. We LOVE to take, don't get me wrong, but it gives us far more pleasure to give. We are the world's volunteers, the designated drivers, the responsible ones, the ones to be relied upon.
Getting back to my new friend Dan....for the first time in my life I feel no responsibility or obligation to another person - just like for no reason or happenstance. Not in a mean "I don't care what you think or what your needs are" kind of way but in a really good way. In a " I honestly do - care what you think" kind of way. Its very freeing.
Not that the rest of my friends, and you know who you are- should feel that I am dissing them for not being my serendips! No way! I truly believe that people in your life are there for a reason - each person that you meet has a part to play - and for that matter, as do I in their lives.
And I'm sure that there is someone out there saying - good God girl - do you really need more faggots in your life? Well, you know, unless I am going to put "must be fuckable" on my friend application, I don't see how it matters. I think for me, that too is just a happenstance.
What I'm trying to say is getting more complicated as I try to explain it. Every person you meet -every person you know has a place and serves a purpose - then someone comes along who doesn't fit - who doesn't know all your stories, doesn't already know your weaknesses, doesn't know who you really are already. And you get to re-tell your self and all the stories about yourself as you introduce your self to the new person. You get to be excite,d because someone likes you the way you came prepackaged with the label torn off and one corner missing. And its okay because you don't owe them anything. If they don't like it they can walk away - and so can you. No obligations.
It may be a stretch to bubbly serendipity but the reason that I feel so lucky is that I often feel so loved and just as often feel so unloved. This person - this friendship - it comes obligation free and purposeless and free of encumbrance - and for this I am grateful and excited.
Serendipity.
Turns out I am an excellent judge of character.

Big Pig Party

There comes a time in every fag hags career that you get the opportunity to choose to take one road or another with your friends. For those of you who don't know, let me explain how this works. Each hag is allotted one or more faggots. Sometimes a lot - sometimes a little - sometimes it depends on the season or the location. Faggots tend to be tempremental so, they tend to come and go.
I have been blessed with the greatest set of friends. And yes, they have come and gone through the years. Its only natural really.
Out of the group you are given, you may be truly blessed and have a very best friend. Sometimes its a bff (best friend forever) or a best girlfriend - depends on the guy really. I have been the luckiest bitch alive and have the best bff ever. But like I said, every trip has that road that gives you the opportunity to make a choice.
Many many years ago my family had what would go down in history as our worst family reunion ever. We had it at my cousin's cottage on Lake Huron - a beautiful place - right on the lake. My family brought our trailer (yes we had a trailer - why?) and I brought my best friend Rick. We took the train from Toronto to Stratford and drove with my parents the rest of the way - neither of us could drive then. I must have been about 24.
Rick and I always tell people that we met at a party: I buzzed the door and he answered it, made me laugh and I've never left his side since. For all intents and purposes, that's right. But it was more intense than than really. At that very first party, I got to the apartment - demanded to know who had answered the buzzer and didn't let him out of my sight that whole night. He made me laugh. I made him laugh. And at the end of those 2 or 3 hours I'd found the other half of my brain!
My mother adored Rick. He could do no wrong in her eyes and as a matter of fact, I think she is the only person that has ever ever said to me, "too bad he's gay". She always made sure to make him is favourite meal (these really disgusting super sweet spare ribs) whenever he came to town and treated him like the sun shone out of his ass and lit up the world. Sometimes I still think it does.
Anyway, we went to the cottage on Saturday. There was no room in the family trailer for Rick and I so we were sleeping in my cousins old tent trailer. As a matter of fact, my Uncle Chub had made the tent trailer himself so it was a homemade tent trailer - nothing classier than a home made trailer! And Uncle Chub is a whole other story.
Saturday was a fun play day at the lake. We swam out forever over the sandbars that go on forever out into the lake. We played in the inner tubes. We sat on the beach. We played volley ball. We did everything that we could wedge in. Dinner was bbqed something - but the best part was actually sitting around the fire later. We sat with my whole extended family - joking around, laughing at nothing and of course eating marshmallows and weiners on a stick.
When we finally stumbled to bed, we decided to put the sleeping bags together and sleep on the one bed, mattresses stacked in the name of comfort.
We talked until we fell asleep - mostly about nothing. This was something we did all the time - and still do. We get on the phone and talk about everything, nothing, people, places and things until one of us falls asleep and the other one has the good sense to hang up or fall asleep too.
I remember so clearly being just happy. Happy-happy-happy that night.
In the morning I awoke to Rick's horrific snoring. We were laying there face to face. At that point, he had long hair - beautiful naturally blondish and curly. I stared at his face, and even with those beautiful blue eyes closed, he was quite the most gorgeous man I'd ever seen.
And he loves me and I love him. And it wasn't of course in the traditional way that I always imagined someone would love me. There were no trumpets blaring and butterflies in my stomach. He didn't kiss me with a burning white hot passion. And of course there would never be sex.
He wasn't tall dark and handsome and riding on a white horse. He wasn't going to shower me with gifts. He was a vain, slutty, man-whore with an intollerance for people who ask questions. He lived life with no apology for who or what he is and who or what he does. He was hysterically funny and kind of mean. But then, as now, he is all I needed and in a totally untraditional way, he completed me - so sappy but true.
He was laying there beside me and I watched him sleep. I felt such overwhelming love. That very minute - that very day - that was when I decided that person who made me so very happy - that person was the love of my life. I would never let that go - no matter what.
During the day my family showed up in droves. Cousins, Uncles and Aunts from all over southwestern Ontario. My Mom and my cousins started to roast the WHOLE PIG over a fire. People brought the traditional Southwestern Ontario summer buffet foods: devilled eggs, jellied salads, many things with mayonaise and baked beans. All went nicely with the pig - right?
Rick and I did the same things we had done the day before and it was so fun.
Rick is a great person to introduce to any family. I have seriously in the 20+ years I've known him never heard anyone say that they don't like him. He makes a great first impression and I really admire that about him. Sometimes what I do is just watch him be him. As sad as that is it can be enough fun for me!
Supper came and we, of course were the first person to get to that big pig. Of course we were because my mother idolized Rick and whatever she could do to please him - like feed him - she would! We got our plate filled - loved it and....... hey - what was wrong with the pig? Well, apparently you need to cook a pig a hell of a lot longer than my family did! We and about 6 other people got the only edible cooked pork. The rest was a jellified jiggly salmonella filled mess. It ended up being mostly a vegetarian reunion. This in my family qualified as an unmitigated DISASTER!
We got back in the car, back on the train and home again - that part I know happened but don't really remember well. The thing about that weekend that makes it one of those times that I never forget is the sheer joy of being just who I was with just who I was with. My family and my very best friend.
That road you are given and the opportunity to make the choices - it is well worth travelling. Do we ever find love often enough that we should ever turn it way? Whatever form it takes whatever its length or its intesity, it is always worth taking that risk.

Greek God

When I was in grade 6 I met a boy. A boy for whom I instantly had the most all consuming crush that a 12 year old can have. It carried on through grades 7 & 8 where I joined all the clubs that he did (to this day though, please don’t ask me to play chess!) and made friends with his friends.
His parents owned a restaurant that he had been working in after school and on weekends since he was about 9. Every Saturday and some Sundays I would tag along with our now mutual friend Mike, and sit at the counter in the restaurant for a couple of hours watching wresting or some other such “sport” but mostly watching my Steve watch wrestling or serve club sandwiches and fries.
Ah but he was so cute! He was kinda short – well shorter than I was but I was tall. He was kinda chubby – but so was I. Blonde, and Greek (which I was NOT) – very adorable. I followed him everywhere.
The summer of grade 8 he was dating Shelly. Meh, she wasn’t much to look at and as sharp as a pillow. But blessing of blessings for me she went away for half of the summer! That freed up Steve’s time to hang out with me!
Normally I would have used the fact that my family had a swimming pool to woo him but he has this terrifying fear of water. He wouldn’t even take baths. When he was 7 he and is friend were walking across the river to school and he watched his friend fall through the ice on the river and drown in front of him. He was a troubled soul…..how cool. Instead, I wooed him with my charm. I was always a funny chick – and he liked that – so we hung out. I also had big boobs from the time I was about 11 – so that helped. It certainly didn’t hurt.
One night after we had walked and talked for hours and hours I flat out said, “why CAN’T you like me the same way that you like Shelly?” I needed to know. He stood there, in front of a stop sign banging his head against it. “I just can’t” he said and we left it at that.
In the middle of grade nine the dynamic changed again. Steve started dating the girl that sat next to me in home room – Jennifer. Each night after school, Steve and Jennifer and Mike and I would walk home together. We would stop behind the abandoned gas station and Steve and Jennifer would make out for what, in my head, seemed like forever. Mike and I would chat – or should I say Mike would chat about comic books and science fiction and I would occasionally nod my head or grunt in acknowlegement. I tried not to watch – I really did because it gutted me.
It wasn’t as if Jennifer didn’t KNOW that I adored him. She did. And she would tell me things that I didn’t really want to ever hear. She told me that when they were necking she would reach down and feel him through his jeans. If I’d known then what I know now, I could have told her that she was totally full of shit. Chance would be a fine thing to find his miniscule penis through jeans.
My relationship with Jennifer lasted no longer than her relationship with him. I did my level best to see that that ended as much as I could. My maciavellian tendancies were h
Jennifer met a boy at the family trailer one weekend (yes – I said trailer). She cheated on MY Steve. As soon as I heard this I went to Steve. “Jennifer is cheating on you and I’m sure she’s going to break up with you – you should dump her first.” Then I ran right on back to Jennifer and said “Steve just told me he was going to break up with you – are you going to take that?” Boom. That was all it needed.
Steve and I stayed friends. I skipped ahead a grade in high school. He played football and joined the student council. I edited the school paper and graduated a year early. I moved away to go to University in Toronto.
One weekend when I came home to visit my parents, we met up to take yet another walk around the river. As we were headed home he asked me if I had any boyfriends now that I had moved away. Of course I had – I’m not a complete loser. But, I was smart enough to say “no one like you.”
He was smart enough to take that opportunity to reach up and kiss me – because by that time, fully grown I was 5’10” and he was 5’7”. I made a mental note to kiss him sitting down from then on.
It is hard for me to describe that kiss – not my first but my first big kiss. It was like a wave washed over me. Almost like when you feel the colour drain from you right before you throw up. Perhaps that isn’t the most appropriate analogy but, it was an actual physical feeling of having my insides turn to jello. Just jello.
We kissed a bit more and he walked me home. We kissed a bit more and he left. I remember what he was wearing – what I was wearing – the time of year – I remember everything about that day. It was a mythological awakening for me – as hokey as that sounds.
So, things carried on, he went away to university. I dropped out in second year and got a job in Toronto. I still came home the odd weekend. Strangely we didn’t ever seem to be free the same weekends.
To say his parents didn’t like me would perhaps be the understatement of the century. They were forever throwing down the phone when I called and screaming at him in greek. He told me not to worry about it but, I tended to wait until he called me. Once, that year, I sent him a letter (back in the day when people still did that kind of thing). According to him, his parents took it, opened it, and grounded him.
So what’s wrong with me? I’m not Greek. I’m a fat girl and I’m not Greek. That’s it.
In spite of that, we did hook up in the winter of what should have been his second year of university. He had dropped out too. He didn’t fit in at University, had tried to hurt himself and had in the fine Greek approach to mental health been sent away to family in Greece and England to recover his senses. Whatever they did, it seemed to work. He seemed back to himself although he did talk about his feelings, which in and of itself was a miracle.
He and I finally managed to coordinate weekends at home. He would have dinner with his family and then say he was going out for a drive. He would pick me up (no given time you see because it couldn’t be a date).
Many a night I sat by the door waiting and waiting and he never showed. He would call me the next week when he was back at school. He couldn’t get away – family showed up – couldn’t think of an excuse. I always forgave him in spite of myself. It was a Romeo and Juliet scenario that fed my need for drama.
Steve’s parents had bought him a little red sports car. It was an amazing car for a 20 year old to drive! It was their bribery gift to him to encourage him to lose weight. If you lose weight we will give you a sports car. So he lied and told them that he had lost weight and he got a car.
It was on our rides in that car that we finally made it past just making out. I was still at the point where if he opened my front door my insides went completely to jello. Hearing his voice on the phone sent me over the edge. His presence had a physical effect on me – as I’ve said before – in spite of myself. And in spite of the fact that he was one of the most selfish and uncaring lovers ever in the history of the planet – it worked for me and I sought him out whenever I could.
One night, driving back in the dead of winter from some lonely country road in what may have been the storm of the century, the car started to spin while we went around a huge turn on the way back in to town. I was terrified – he was terrified. And as we pulled out of the spin and back on to the road, he said, “My mother would never forgive me if I died with you.” Somehow to him it would be better to die alone than have his mother discover him with me.
But, things carried on, he was at the University of Windsor and I went to Western. At this point, his father was bribing him to date a girl who also went to Western. Bribing because he would give him $100 to take this girl to dinner and a movie and woo her. She was a medical student and Greek, from a good family.Steve did his duty like a good son. He took his money, picked up the girl, took her to dinner at the Olive Garden, pocketed the remaining $75 and came to my apartment. We never went out.
Time passed and these liaisons became less frequent as we both went on with other people. We still talked – whenever we could get away with no one else knowing.Several years later I stopped by his family’s restaurant. It was a Saturday and he was working in the kitchen all alone about to close up for the day. We were just talking – a lot had happened and we were catching up. I couldn’t help myself. Although we both had other people in our lives by that point – he got his doctor – I kissed him again. It was the same old jello insides feeling. It never left.
And then the unimaginable happened. His Dad walked in. We flew apart. His father said something in Greek and turned around and left. I begged Steve to tell me what he said.
Apparently, many years ago his father had somehow found out that we were seeing each other. Then, he had told Steve: “Fucking a fat girl is like riding a mo-ped. Its feels great until someone sees you – then its humiliating.” That day he caught us himself he told Steve, “I’ve seen you. You should be humiliated.”
Since we parted that day we kept in touch sporadically. He went to my wedding. I went to his. His parents were sunshine and light to me at the wedding mostly because I was pregnant at the time and brought my husband – they knew their baby was safe from me. We talk occasionally – once every 5 years or so, but I still look for him whenever I pass his parents house or the restaurant.
I truly believe that whatever lovers or friends have come before or after him that he was my first case of the perfect blend of friendship and lust. I’ve never ever had that inside jello feeling since. I’m not sure if it was passion or masochism – but I loved it either way.