i joined f@cebook today, after many years of resistance. i gave in because i never know about any of the parties or bike rides or even the protests anymore, because i’m in school all the time and no one talks about these things face to face like they used to. (let alone the old promo techniques from my anarcho-punk-activisty days in toronto… phone trees? handbills? wheat-paste postering expeditions? what are those?!!)
le sigh: the end of an era.
my original objection to the whole thing was the idea that some corporation would know who my friends are. then, once my paranoia settled down into the dull background roar that accompanies my everyday life like a really bad musical score, i decided that i just don’t have time for it. my anonymous pseudonym online life (this one!) has become so very very rich and connected that i didn’t want anything else competing with it: certainly not friend requests from the kids who bullied me in elementary school, and *definitely* nothing from the ones i went on to bully in high school (bullying creates bullies, let this be a leason to you!).
but i *do* want to get involved with planning the annual anniversary party for the local community bike shop, and i want to know about the potlucks and dance-a-thons and late night bike rides and all the other things that are happening with my friends, and it looks like this is the means to that end. not participating was not getting me anywhere.
so here i am: connecting, socially, online, with people who know my face and my real name and where i live. it still weirds me out, but i’m trying not to think about it too hard.
when you have a bunch of bikes on hand, something starts to happen: even when you know how to fix the ones that break down, you just don’t bother, because you can so easily grab another bike and keep riding. in fact, it’s a nice little system, because that way you end up riding all the bikes at one point or another, instead of letting them languish unridden.
but then eventually a point is reached, when there are not enough functioning bicycles remaining, and something has got to give.
at my house, it finally happened this weekend. we’ve only got four bicycles between two people (which is a fairly sane ratio compared to my former life in which i had six bikes all on my own) but only one of them was working. of the others, one has an undiagnosed puncture, the other has a ruptured rear tire sidewall (again), and the third has a pedal with seized inner bearings that i can’t access. of course it would be easiest to deal with the puncture, but that’s the bike i’ve been riding most recently, and as much as i love it, i’m wanting a little change. plus, i miss carrying things, and the bike with the fucked-up pedal is a sweet old italian cruiser with a solid rack that can take my pannier buckets.
that’s when i dug out my collection of cherry parts, and discovered that bike pedals come with two different sizes of pedal axles… who knew? well, not this bike geek.
that sweet old italian cruiser? yeah, it takes a size smaller axle than any of the nice pedals in my collection. fucking hell.
i forgot to tell you: while i was still in australia, i blogged about how upon my return to canada, my former volunteer mechanic gig at the local community bike shop was going to turn into a paid position, but this didn’t happen. in fact, not long after i got back, a bunch of changes resulted in the shop no longer even being open for the women-and-trans-only shifts that i used to cover. i’m not upset about this, because it really does make sense given the situation, but it has meant that i don’t have regular schedules access to tools or parts or impromptu mid-wrenching dance parties.
however! i still have friends, which is what really matters. one quick phone call, and i’ve made my plan: after school tomorrow, me and mo are walking over to a friend’s house to exchange some of my pickles for a chance dig through his pedal collection, which is much larger than mine. it won’t cost either of us a cent, and his dog may even teach mine a thing or two while i’m there.
this is why, even though i’ve left this city many times, i always come back.
If your dog is a canine vacuum, avoid mushrooms. This is easier said than done, here on the wet coast in autumn, but it’s still important to keep in mind. Also, consider pet health insurance, because trips to the vet are expensive and it make take a costly test or three to confirm that poison is the cause of your dog’s distress.
Mo’s doing okay, though still staying at the hospital until this evening at the earliest. I am relieved, though feeling fragile. Also, even more exhausted than a few days ago. We’ve canceled the open house/puppy warming that we’d planned for tomorrow night, because it looks like none of us will want to do much beyond cuddle on the couch.
mo’s at the veterinary hospital, hopefully in recovery from an evening of severe gastric distress. we don’t know what caused it: it could be a reaction to the dewormer we gave him this morning, or a toxic effect from some mushroom he ate, or possibly a blockage in his digestive tract. when i took him to the park after school, he was in fine form, but apparently it all went downhill after i left home to meet a friend at the pub.
i’m trying to be optimistic, because i ought to: mo is in good hands, and they will take care of him as best they can. puppies can and do recover from all sorts of crises, including bad reactions/poisonous mushrooms/blockages. he is a strong little creature, and has a lot going for him.
i’m very grateful for excellent community support: when oats rang me at the pub to tell me what had happened, my friend drove me all the way to the hospital… and s.u.m. and captain pestou drove oats and mo to the hospital, then stayed with us through hours and hours of waiting. thank you, friends.
it’s almost 1 am and i’m going to bed, tired and fighting the bad worried feelings with logic and hope. this is the first time i’ve let myself get all wrapped up in a pet since my cat died 6 years ago, the first time i’d chosen an animal instead of having them just wander into my life… i’m trying hard to let this choice still be a good one.
our boy, earlier today at the park
Listening to the radio while washing post-breakfast dishes, I was sickened by a report that there is a bill before the Ugandan parliament to not simply outlaw homosexuality, but to make it a crime for a person to not report anyone they believe to be queer. I couldn’t turn off the program, not even as the journalist spoke of being unable to find a queer Ugandan willing to speak on-air for fear of persecution.
It absolutely terrifies me, to know that this is the reality for people like me in other parts of the world. I feel exhausted by classmates who don’t take me seriously when I object to their casual homophobia, and yet my frustration is just the tip of the iceberg for global human rights and respect.
S.U.M. happened by on a laundry run, and shared my anxious outrage as I hugged Mo, who kindly responded by falling asleep in my arms. It’s scary, agreed S.U.M., and I was relieved that she didn’t simply tell me it’s happening elsewhere so I shouldn’t worry. I *do* worry, because those same ideas of hate are what make queers unsafe the world over. Even when we aren’t being imprisoned and killed by others, we are being made to imprison and kill ourselves, out of fear and self-loathing generated by the same homophobic oppression.
You can listen to the podcast and read more on the webpage of CBC’s The Current.
Also, check out the blog of the blogger who did an email interview with The Current, Gay Uganda.
(In case it isn’t obvious, I did school tasks from home again today, and no, my mood has still not improved. In fact, I may never leave the house again… Though I suppose that would really limit my career prospects as an electrician, not to mention the annoyance it would cause my lover. Hmmmm. I’ll work on it.)
queer canada blogs, our blogroll featuring queers in canada as well as canadian queers living elsewhere, now has its very own blog review column in capital xtra, aka the ottawa edition of canada’s big queer newspaper. as usual, mae callen is responsible: i’m just the latecomer, tagging along and thrilled to be given the opportunity to take part!
mae kicked it all off in august with a look at The Naked Black Guy, followed by my first review in the september issue, in which i reveal to the world how much i love queer parenting blogs. today we got word that they want us to keep the reviews coming! hurrah! i’m hoping that it’ll get picked up by the paper’s other editions too.
a note on “fame”: mae and i are both writing under our online pseudonyms, because that’s how we blog and it’d be uncomfortable to out our real-life selves for this project, especially considering that we’re specifically writing about our blog communities. i wouldn’t have it any other way! and yet, it’s a bit sad, because i’ve finally got an article published in a real paper, and yet i can’t even clip it out to show my mom because there’s no way i’d want her to read my blog. it’s a double edged sword, my friends.
while we’re talking about QCB, guess what? there’s a chance that mae and i might finally meet IN PERSON next week when i’m in toronto!!! how very exciting is that.
celebratory bubbles stuck in the grass, at the garry oak meadow where k and w were married... congratulations, my friends!
it’s the sunday of the holiday weekend, and i’m laying on my old couch in my old living room, under my old duvet: all things i’ve been missing since i left here last april. the view out the window has changed somewhat, in that the greenery has become very overgrown and i’m mostly looking at leaves and the grey rainy sky. still, it is nice and comforting. if i keep my head turned towards the window, i can almost pretend that this couch isn’t the only accessible piece of furniture in an otherwise completely disorganized mess of boxes, tables, artwork, and electronics.
yes, we still haven’t unpacked from moving last monday.
personally, i feel as though i lost the last 6 days of my life. even the wedding on friday is a bit of a blur, despite the fact that i’d stopped swigging the codeine cough syrup on thursday night so that i’d be sober enough to drive around on pre-event errands.
after caring for me all this past week, oats has taken ill herself and is currently napping in the bedroom. there’s lentil soup in the crock pot, jello in the fridge, and another day off tomorrow, so we’ll be alright. still, it worries me to have been so sick, and now to have her going down too, because right now we’ve got so few responsibilities compared to our planned future. when the puppy arrives next month, and then kids a couple years after that, it’s not going to be so easy to simply drop everything and succumb to a chest infection. i mean, really: i just won’t be able to do it.
oats says we’ll have to have a much more organized life in general, so that things can keep going if one of us is sick. it’s a good point, i write as i glance around at the insanity that is our apartment… even though i don’t need a cheese grater or comic books or sewing machine at this very moment, it’d be easier to cope with being sick if i at least knew where these things were, if i felt like everything else was in order.
i like the rain, though. as much as i’m sorry for my friends who’d planned on camping/sailing/partying today and tomorrow, i’m glad that i’ve got this excuse for sticking close to home.
we moved today, from oats’ place where i’ve been living since returning from australia, to my old apartment that i’d sublet out while away. my beloved upstairs neighbour, puma, hugged me as we unloaded boxes in the driveway, and said “welcome home.”
some evening this week, we will have a house-family barbecue on the upstairs patio: us, captain pestou, puma, and the amazing landlady, whose house adjoins ours to the east.
oats made the move too, giving up her lovely little studio above the square… which is what made it a move, as opposed to me simply coming home to my still-furnished apartment. i say it’s not “me simply coming home”, but only because it’s so much more than that: this home is more home-ish than it ever has been before.
PD just called: the little black puppy is ours!
according to him, MD had just put that ad online “as a safeguard” in case people flaked out on adopting the pups… to which we say BULLSHIT! as oats pointed out, what happened to the other two puppies that she’d already sold? but anyway, if that’s what PD chooses to believe in order to preserve his friendship with MD, more power to him. rock on. whatever. all i care about is that they both agree that the puppy is OURS!!!
(and we don’t have to pay $300 for him.)
earlier today, we’d visited the SPCA and even went so far as walking a lovely 8 month old dog who might have been perfect if it weren’t for the fact that we’re moving this weekend. really, it’s not fair for us to bring home a dog until things are settled, in another month or so… which is right when mono will be coming to live with us!
fuck, i’m so happy.
this puppy situation has taken a turn for the odd and unjust.
last night, we got a phone call from the friend-of-a-friend whose dog sired the puppies. let’s call him Poppa Dawg, or PD for short. so PD called and said that he’d finally gotten a hold of his “friend”, the woman whose dog is the mother of the puppies. we can call her Momma Dawg, or MD, for the sake of simplicity.
PD told us that MD had found homes for two of the remaining puppies, and was going to get rid of one of her other dogs (!!!) so that she could keep the third (and final) puppy for herself. as PD hadn’t met these other potential puppy owners, he expressed to us that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the situation, and had given MD a week in which to finalize things, including arranging for him to meet these other people.
PD apologized for the confusion and frustration, said that he was feeling it too, and that he wouldn’t blame us if we wanted to give up on the whole thing and start looking elsewhere. i told him that we actually *were* already looking elsewhere, but would still love one of his puppies if they became available because they are so perfect.
later in the evening, oats began to peruse the pets section of the local online classifieds. suddenly she asked if i remembered what the momma dog had looked like. “why?” i asked. oats turned her computer so that i could see the photo on the screen: there she was, with the text below.
mix breed puppies 3 males left great markings 30 lbs full grown
Price
$300
Description
3 male pups left from litter of seven. Mom is a lab/border terrier (24 lbs) Dad is a blue heeler/lab/border collie/shepherd… who knows! At 35 lbs. Pups are coming up on 5 weeks. $100.00 deposit to hold. One all black, one black/brindle with tan markings, one black with tan and white markings. Will be extremely agile, intelligent, slim and loyal. Please email – serious inquiries and GOOD HOMES only. Photo is of mom.
this is an exact description of PD’s puppies.
at first, we were confused.
when PD and i talked about the puppies initially, a week and a half ago, i had assumed that there was a price attached. PD corrected me, saying that all they wanted was for the pups to go to good homes. he had bred his dog because his dog is awesome, and he wanted his friends to have the opportunity for similar companionship.
when we went to meet the puppies last saturday, PD said that 3 puppies had already been “spoken-for”, not “sold”.
he used the same wording the day after that, when he called to say that MD informed him she’d found homes for the other pups.
besides which, $300 is a lot of money but not an outrageous sum, so if things had changed and they’d decided to charge for the puppies, why wouldn’t PD have mentioned this to us?
that’s when it became clear: PD HAD NO IDEA THAT MD WAS SELLING THE PUPPIES.
obviously, we had to tell him. but first, we needed to confirm that this was the same woman who’d posted the ad.
have i ever mentioned that oats is an excellent sleuth? i don’t know if it’s the mystery novels or the CSI or the L&O or what, but she’s quite clever. back on the computer, oats did a search through the local online classifieds for other listings from the same user as the puppy advertisement. the result was a goldmine.
MD hadn’t been home when PD had taken us to see the pups last weekend, so even though we’ve never met her, we know a lot of random trivia about her… as it turns out, enough to confirm her identity as the advertiser selling the puppies. there was a request for a mattress to be delivered to her house that included a map, which confirmed that this was the same location we’d visited; an offer to stud her shih tzu, with a photo of another dog whom we’d met at her place; and a request for an apartment with a dog-friendly yard, which mentioned her profession and other personal details that PD’d shared with us.
so, to recap:
according to PD, MD had “found good homes” for all the puppies.
according to the ad online, there are still 3 puppies available to the first people with $300 per dog… including the sweet little black one that we’d been wanting.
i texted PD: “it seems MD is selling the puppies online for $300 each. i’m confused. call me?”
my phone rang 15 minutes later, and PD said, “i just received a very disturbing text message from you.”
we were right: he had no idea.
as PD doesn’t have internet at home, i read the ad to him and explained the rest of the evidence. honestly, i thought he was gonna cry, he was so sad and shocked. he thanked me, and told me he needed to process the situation.
poor guy.
i don’t know what’s going to happen now, but at least we know that there’s a reason why communications between PD and MD have been so convoluted around this puppy thing: it’s not that PD’s a “a sweet but flaky hippy-type” as i’d called him in my previous post, but rather that MD is a selfish schemer who was trying to secretly make a buck off their puppies.
some “friend”: she was going to fuck him over.
needless to say, at this point we’ve decided to really look elsewhere for our new canine family member! i suppose we could still end up with our sweet little monolyth, but i’m pretty committed to avoiding any of this dramatic slimy bullshit so won’t be pursuing it any longer.
having said that… just for kicks, oats emailed a response to MD’s ad, inquiring about the puppies. we haven’t heard back yet, but i’m thinking of all the condemning things i want to write if she contacts us.
