Censorship gone awry

I shouldn't blog when I feel this fucking dreadful. It seems pretty pathetic to admit that I hope the six bottles of beer I just guzzled is enough to knock me out enough that I can sleep. All I can say is, "Don't try this at home kids." Whilst the red-tops and celeb mags of the Western World might glamorise rehabilitation, like business travel, it's really not all it's cracked up to be.

But getting wasted is still better than lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling.

Shit, I wish I had some weed.

It's just another day of floundering in the darkness. And frankly, I'd be doing a lot better if I was genuinely alone rather than hoping that - at any second - that call will come.

"It's time."

"I'm ready to meet."

"I'm strong enough."

"My doctors say it's OK for me to see you."

"I'm sorry it's been so long, but now I can explain why I behaved the way I did...over dinner..."

Whatever way, shape, or form it comes in, days like this make me long for a few words of hope from her. It's another holiday. It's obvious I'm hurting. But despite everything that I'd classify easily as 'blatantly fucking obvious' the words never come, and I feel all the more presumptuous and naive when they don't. That's why I won't be letting the invisible woman know my new address and phone number when I move next month. For nearly a year I've leapt out of the front porch chair whenever a red truck has passed by. For nearly a year I've checked my voicemail hoping there's a message from her. For nearly a year I've tried my best to cajole, persuade, intimidate, or invoke in some way the kind of response I need to hear from her. And for nearly a year I've tried to invite her into my life in every way I can think of.

But the kind of responses I need have never arrived, and now I'm left to wonder whether she really meant anything she said. I'd explain why she behaves the way she does, but I honestly don't know why. I don't receive any information. I'm not in the loop, not included, not trusted. And I can't even tell you why I'm not because I honestly don't know. What started as a quasi-mature relationship between two adults has somehow turned into a teenage-esque battle of wits. I feel like I don't know anything any more. How she's doing, how she was, how she's likely to be, and - most importantly - when the dangling carrot of a perfect soulmate match and family life to go with it will come to fruition.

If ever.

It really doesn't help me in my recovery. Moreover, I have worked long and hard to counter my illnesses. Those victories I've achieved in other areas of my life now serve only to highlight where things aren't keeping up with all else. At one point I couldn't answer the phone or a knock at the door, yet somehow I've managed to motivate myself to apply for a job, get it, and then receive glowing feedback after only a month. I've pinned it down and despite fighting the demons on an hourly basis I've managed - somehow - to maintain some kind of façade that's got me through.

I hate where I live, so I've got the job that gives me enough cash that I can move out into a place of my own.

Through meds, group therapy, individual shrinkage and a shitload of research and hard work I've managed to understand, believe, analyse, and counter-attack an illness that might've caused a lesser man to take his own life. And I should know, because I've been fucking close enough to it to know.

Yet if anyone were to ask me how the invisible woman is doing, I wouldn't be able to answer the question.

The relationship, if you can call it that, feels distant and theoretical at best. She probably lives less than a mile from me but I don't know where. She ignores the 'serious' questions I ask and answers only in smalltalk. Those times when I've stood up for myself and demanded an explanation, I've been told that I'm triggering her. Yet she keeps hanging on.

What does she want?

What is she getting out of this?

Why does she persist in persisting, yet still refuse to meet?

Why - or better yet - how does she gloss over the obvious excruciating pain I'm feeling and blogging about on here? If this were a teenage romance and she the subdued vicar's daughter, then I could understand it. But this is a 35 year-old (maybe 36 by now) woman!!!! And I am a 38 year-old man. Isn't there EVER a time you get to in life when you're beyond the bullshit, or as a species are we doomed to wallow in it for as long as we live and (attempt to) court?

Exasperated doesn't even cover it. Frankly, I feel like this for most of the time and I've felt like this for a long time but it's not often that I'm honest about the kind of stress and misery this situation puts me under.

I am Tantalus incarnate.

I just don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do anymore. And I'm exhausted. I wish I could just say, "Fuck this shit" and walk away, but I've been *cough cough* blessed with the kind of conscience that won't let me do that.

Crappy Hallowe'en

Just a brief note to say that holidays still suck.

I just trudged back home from work to find Hallowe'en is in full swing in my neighbourhood. So, I'm currently cowering in my bedroom with all the lights in the house switched off. I can't even play the Playstation because the blind in the front room is still broken so passers-by would see me through the window. I haven't had time to bake, nor to hit the candy store, and - surprise surprise - I'm reluctant to see a long string of crestfallen kiddies' faces when I tell them I have nothing to give.

Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is blaring from a party somewhere close by, and the Main Street traffic is being brought to a standstill as three-foot tall zombies, witches, and Batmen scurry back and forth over the road. But, like Thanksgiving before, and xmas to come, Hallowe'en just feels like a big party that everyone in Toronto got an invite to except me.

Marijuana and unlocking the lucid mind

God made marijuana. Mankind made alcohol and cigarettes.

So ask yourself this, "Which do you trust?"

Bill Hicks also says of marijuana that it is illegal in the USA because the government there, "...doesn't want you to think!" He has a point. The combined quantity of illnesses and death caused by the 'abuse' of marijuana is...none. Zero. Zip.

Now compare that to how many deaths or other problems are caused each year by the abuse of alcohol or cigarettes. To help, let's put it over a statistically significant and controlled period of time.

Like ever. Ever ever ever. Since the dawn of time. Deaths by alcohol or cigarettes? Well, about 260,000 people die just from cancers caused by cigarettes every year. So, let's assume the bible is correct for a moment (I know, but just bear with me and suspend your disbelief).

The approximate quantity of deaths caused by cigarettes alone since the dawn of religion? 520,000,000.

Deaths caused by shmoking weed over the same period of time? Still zero.

Effect of alcohol on humankind? As of 1997, alcohol causes three to four per cent of global death and disability putting it on a level with measles, tuberculosis and malaria, and is five times more severe than illegal drugs in terms of impact on global health.

Compared to using a species of plant that grows happily in the wild and without chemical or genetic alteration? Still zero.

Goodness gracious me. Could it possibly be that the law and the facts of medicine aren't actually aligned? Why could that be? Hmmmm...let's see...who makes money out of legal pharmaceuticals? And who makes money out of illegal ones? They don't seem to be the same people. All the legal ones seem to be mostly conservative, and white, yet the majority of illegal pharma manufacturers seem to be voteless and black, at least at the sharp end of the supply chain...

This is an important blog, so forgive me flogging the dead horse there. But regardless of your personal feelings, beliefs, and moral stance on marijuana et al I need you to forget about the entire legal/illegal debate and focus solely on the effects of the herb. If you can't take it from me, then take it from Gandalf and the entire population of Hobbiton. As Saruman says to him, "Your love of the halflings' leaf has dulled your senses."

If you can't do this then you will miss the point, and that will be a shame.

Ironically though, the so-called "dullness" is highly sought after. It isn't really dullness though, more of a calmness...a calm. Every variety and strain of the flower has two basic effects according to which one of two overall varieties the plant is - indica, or sativa. One is a body 'high', the other a cerebral high, and growers are now so adept at cross-breeding that you can practically choose the ratio of cerebral to body 'high' in a particular plant and grow it that way.

Woah there. I'm in great danger of getting sidetracked into an entirely different blog entry. So, here's one of the reasons why I'm pro-Mary-Jane:

So I'm sat on the porch the evening before the stalker left town. He's out, busy, or otherwise occupied so I have a few moments to myself. I light up a joint, and immediately feel its warming, calming effect. There's also a feeling similar to when you have soap left on your face after a wash and the skin feels as if it's tightening. This is usually when a face-wide grin arrives.

Most important of all though, it calms down my mind - the same mind that races with a hundred thoughts at once as soon as I wake up in the morning. I can almost feel all the usual norms and preconceptions dismantling themselves as I relax further.

And then lateral thinking triggered the idea that hit me. I've been living my life as if I were already part of the invisible woman's family, when I'm not.

Naturally, because of the way my mind works, as soon as I wake up, I don't know at what time I needed to wake up in order to drop her daughter at school in the morning. I get anxiety. I want to surprise her with breakfast in bed, but I can't remember whether she told me if she was allergic to anything. Anxiety. It makes me want to remember to slip it into our next e-mail conversation. "BTW, do you like guacamole?"

Because getting together with the invisible woman includes being a father to her eight year-old daughter, it occurred to me that I've been thinking a lot about the responsibility of that situation as much as the nice stuff. Those morning anxieties have been prevalent throughout my day - I think she swims in the evenings, but where? What time? Do I need to drop her or pick her up? Do I need to help out with the homework? Can I use my initiative and cook a nice family dinner for everyone, or will that disrupt a routine that the invisible woman and her daughter already have in place?

There are hundreds, hundreds of mini-anxieties like this that have been plaguing me. Some in the background, almost subconscious, and others out in the open and all-consuming. But it took relaxing my mind for me to be able to realise that.

Partially in shock, I thought, "Well, that's the way I've been living my life for nearly a year now, but I'm not actually part of the family yet. So how would it feel to think, feel, and behave as if I weren't part of the family yet?" It struck me that the invisible woman probably wasn't thinking, feeling, and behaving in the same way. Plus, she wasn't expecting me to know the answers to all these questions any more than she was expecting me to go collect her daughter from swim class.

It was as if I'd been scrubbing the same saucepan in the kitchen sink, and then everything that was stuck to it all came away at the same time. I felt lifted, as if a huge part of angst had been cleanly and quickly amputated from me.

"She does not expect me to know all this. The only person forcing this expectation on me...is me," I concluded.

The next time I found myself worrying about whether it would be OK to have the daughter help me cook in the kitchen, throw around some sharp knives, deal with boiling water etc, I just told myself, "You don't need to know that yet, because you're not part of that family." It worked. I switched off the anxiety like a bedside lamp and suddenly I had a new way to be able to cope with the whole "invisible woman" situation. I've been doing this ever since, and I'm pleased to say that it's still working.

Now that's what I mean when I say "epiphany".

As soon as the penny had dropped I leaped out of the chair on the front porch and ran inside, leaving my cigarette behind (I'd finished the joint by then). I had to write this down before I forgot it. I started with a draft e-mail but that wasn't enough, so I went into blogger.com and started drafting this blog entry. Then I realised I should have left the house 20 minutes before in order to make it to a friend's house across town on-time. I zipped down to the subway station and as soon as I'd found a seat on the train I whipped out my notebook and continued writing. I also realised I was alone in the carriage and seconds later I was singing out loud to, "Let There Be Love" by Simple Minds. Out loud! And I'm not talking about a quiet hum along to the chorus either, I was belting it out, using my diaphragm like I'd been taught in music school almost 30 years before.

Removing that 'block' was like pulling the cork from an overturned bottle. Lateral thinking ensued with renewed vigour and the ideas started to pour out violently. I can only describe it as a creative 'rush'. I'd put beer in my coffee cup and couldn't help but chuckle out loud every single time I took a sip, thinking, "Mmmmm...good coffee...!" Out loud!!! Madonna's "The Beast Within" came on the iPod and I chuckled at that too, thinking, "Wow, the great thing about headphones is that when one of your ex-wife's cheesy songs comes on without warning, nobody else can hear it."

An idea for another blog popped into my head. I lowered my eyes to the page and began to write at Main Street, and the first time I looked up to see where I was, it was Spadina. I'd written non-stop for the entire journey.

I arrived at my friend's condo more than an hour after having the initial epiphany, but the ideas were still coming. My friend asked me a question regarding a home furnishing choice he needed to make, and I started blurting out ideas for things he could do to soup up his home. One after the other, unchecked, unpredictable, unstoppable. He ran to get his notepad and starting jotting down some of the ideas I was having. I couldn't switch it off, I just had to hang on and let it run its course. Minutes later I used the voice memo functionality on my iPhone to record an idea for a short story.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most significant breakthroughs I've had when it comes to dealing with G.A.D. But would I have had it without weed? Maybe, but certainly not as soon.

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Pact drafted in sofabed custody case
An unsteady calm was almost palpable in the Toronto rain this morning, after intense divorce negotiations this week resulted in a change of sofa-bed ownership.

Both sides were quoted as being pleased with the result, enabling the ex to host guests overnight, and the writer to eliminate anxieties relating to sofabed dismantling. The ex has since committed to reimburse the writer for the used value of the sofa but, more importantly, relations between the two parties are more agreeable than ever.

The writer added that this beneficial and unexpected good fortune is one of several recent occurrences, that collectively form a life-altering nexus of change. A further update on this nexus is expected, "Within 48 hours, and certainly not before I've had a shower," the writer said only moments ago.

Free as a bird-brain

It's a beautiful, still Fall evening.

It'd be beautiful if it was minus thirty though. And snowing. It'd beautiful because this is the first time in months that I have been able to settle onto the porch, laptop at the ready, joint pre-rolled, Guinness poured and settled, without fearing interference.

That's right, the stalker has gone. Not for the week but forever. And the likelihood of him dropping by anytime soon to eat me out of house and home or attempt some kind of homoerotic manoeuvre? Zero. Because he's moved back to Alberta, which I'm reliably informed takes a few days to get to by bus.

He left around 11.30 last night, and many of you reading this will already know from the emphatic text message I broadcasted as soon as his taxi disappeared from view. I was so happy, I actually did the jig of joy on the driveway, safely between the houses and out of sight from the road. I smiled, I grinned, I laughed out loud. I may have whooped. I think there was whooping, albeit brief.

I got all my stuff back from him too. I now, once again, own a tennis racquet, a frisbee, some DVDs, and - I think - the same quantity of crockery I left my ex's place with. And on top of all that I inherited his PS2.

I must be a nice chap after all.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't make that conversation happen last night. Y'know, the one in which I'm supposed to attempt the impossible, and try to tell him I think he has abandonement issues, but with tact.

But y'know what? He enjoyed the relationship as I did for most of it, so what does it matter what happens on the last day of it? I have to ignore the demons telling me I'm somehow responsible for him. And I swear he did nearly make a move on me last night so I think I've dealt with more than my fair share of him.

Nearly a lot more than my fair share. Brrrr.....

"And that's all I have to say about that," as my couturier, Forrest Gump would say.

It's all happening here.

My life is fizzing with change like something nasty and unattended in a chemistry lab...but it's all good.

When my feet touch the ground again, I'll blog.

But I'm stuck at work again now until after dark, so I'll leave you to anticipate the antics that have been running riot lately.

More follows...

Boundaries and limits

It's 7.16am and the stalker has already called this morning, circa 6.33am.

It's fair to say he has issues. Indeed, my dalliance with mental illness over the last two years has increased my ability to sense similar symptoms in others. I clocked depression in my landlord/housemate quite some time ago, and took him through the Goldberg depression questionnaire to check whether my suspicions were correct. He scored higher than I did at the time but despite my gentle suggestion that it wouldn't be inconvenient for him to go check himself out with his family doctor, he insisted that he, "Always scores highly on those things." So one year down the road he still seems pretty miserable with his life, still has zero motivation, and still lives like a slob unless his girlfriend is on her way over. Her visits stimulate a hectic, blind panic in him that cause him to try to catch up on everything he hasn't done in the last few months housekeeping-wise. The first time he did it I felt bad for him so I cleansed the kitchen while he attempted to familiarise himself with the world of personal hygiene by cleaning the bathroom.

However, any goodwill I felt for him quickly dissipated as I observed him purposefully doing the dishes in front of her as if to suggest it was something he did all the time. He couldn't even do that in a considerate way, and washed only those pots and pans that he'd dirtied himself, and nothing else. He ignored the dirty plates on which one of our neighbours had kindly brought over food. He ignored any dishes that I'd used. And he ignored the not insignificant quantity of plates, cutlery, and glassware that was still dotted all over the house where he'd left it. By the time I'd collected all those up there was another full sink of washing-up to do.

So I've been on silent strike since then. Besides, now I'm working I have significantly less time for housework.

I no longer take out the garbage and the recycling. Partially this is because he seems to have lost or at least misplaced the calendar that every house on the street received from the council telling tenants which of the three bins are emptied each Tuesday morning. And partially it's because I want him to notice what happens to the house when I stop looking after it for him. As a result, the vacuum cleaner hasn't moved in weeks. Dust bunnies roll around the lounge unchallenged like tumbleweed. The recycling bin out front, that I put there to accomodate junk mail, is overflowing. Similarly, in the pantry the other recycling bin slowly but surely has become a towering modern art sculpture. Because it's in the corner of that room, it is possible to stack the glass bottles and jars, cardboard boxes and other items all the way up to the windowsill. Unfortunately, neither of us are architects, so at some point that eight wonder of the world toppled over in the night and there is now a proverbial lake of recyclable packaging covering the entire floor of the pantry from wall to wall. If you've seen Star Wars, then think about the scene where Han, Leia, Luke and Chewbacca end up in a garbage masher beneath the detention block of the Death Star and you'll understand what I mean. Meanwhile, the kitchen garbage bin is overflowing, and there are an additional three or four bags dotted around it, mostly full of fast-food packaging that I've moved from the lounge where he left it. Under the kitchen sink, bananas and oranges have formed a temporary strategic alliance and are attempting a coup d'etat of the cupboard with their discoloured, rotting peel. It's ironic that the soft fruits' attempt at global domination blocks the way to the household cleaning products in the same cupboard, which are slowly disappearing from sight. There isn't enough room to swing a cat in the bathroom, and yet despite his tall frame and long reach, he can's seem to get his soap bar wrappers the mammoth distance of two metres from beside the sink to the trash can I put in there.

I'm pleased to say that it doesn't irritate me nearly as much as before because I know I won't have to live with it much longer.

And talking of living with irritation, I have only another 3,900 minutes or so to survive without losing my mind before the stalker disappears to Alberta for good. I do need to have a conversation with him though.

Knowing everything I know about the effect of mental illness on a person, I cannot ignore the fact that the stalker is almost certainly suffering from something, and just shout at him for being an annoying, immature, persistent, ignorant, clingy invader of privacy. Whilst it is not my responsibility to look after him (if I signed adoption papers, I don't remember doing so) my sense is that few people will be considerate enough to be honest with him and let him know the effect his behaviour has on people around him. My landlord/housemate has already stated that if he catches the stalker taking liberties again he's going to tell him to fuck off. Whilst I can easily understand why that's tempting (I'm close to it myself), if the stalker is as immature and sensitive as I suspect then such treatment isn't going to do him any good at all. Indeed, I suspect the stalker is suffering abandonment issues from something that happened in the past and somehow I'm going to try to advise him that such issues do not cure themselves.

I'll let you know how I get on.

I went out...

...just after 4.30pm. I got back at 10.45pm. I ascended the steps. I unlocked and opened the door. I switched on the hall light and removed my shoes. I walked upstairs to the bathroom.

I still had my cock in my hand when he knocked on the fucking door. Persistently too.

I'll leave you to figure out how many minutes that is.

8,682 minutes to go...

Jeezus H Fucking Christ

That does it. I'm outa here.

The stalker's been over four times already since realising I'm not at work - about once every 35 minutes on average.

A kind and understanding friend has read my blog and offered me an 'out'. So I'm out. Fuck this for a laugh.

If only there was a way to switch my stalker with the invisible woman. Then life would be perfect. But then there's no way possible that it could be my life anymore because it wouldn't be nearly fucking ironic enough. Instead I expect I'll be crushed by an articulated lorry carrying two tons of invisible ink, as I'm crossing the road and answering yet another call from the stalker...whilst stepping in dog shit.

Is it me?

So there I am circa 12.30pm, quietly drinking my coffee and smoking a cigarette on the front porch in the Fall sunshine. Along comes the stalker, still in his pyjamas, carrying out his green bin because it's garbage day.

As usual he invites himself up onto the porch and sits next to me. For once he doesn't ask for one of my cigarettes, and he's already co-smoked all my weed so there's none of that left for him to scrounge from me. We chat briefly, and I apologise for not returning his calls whilst in my downward spiral yesterday afternoon and evening. One thing I've learned about my disorders is that, despite the fact that I cannot always control how I behave, I do need to ensure I take responsibility for my actions. Hence the apology.

During the conversation I had to reveal I have the rest of the day off, but then I reeled off a list of chores I have to get done today and went inside to use the bathroom. I felt the need to ensure he understood that just because he and I happen to have the same period of time off work it doesn't mean that I am exclusively at his disposal for the next 12 fucking hours. He wanders back to his place.

By the time I get out of the bathroom, he's pulled on some clothes and walked into my house (I foolishly left the door unlocked) and switched on the PS2 in the lounge. I go into my bedroom to check e-mails on my laptop, and he wanders up the stairs into line-of-sight with the exclamation, "So will you be staying in your room all day?"

"Oh, come in," I say sarcastically, "make yourself at home - do you normally just stroll into people's houses?"

"Well the door was open so I took that as an invitation," he replies.

"Oh really? I thought I closed it?" I retort. And I did fucking well close it, but I didn't lock it.

In the mind of the stalker, this is apparently the equivalent of me sending him a written invitation and then throwing rose petals on the ground between his front door and wherever the fuck I am in the house. If the door isn't locked and barred, if I haven't dug a bear pit in the front lawn and lined it with hand-whittled wooden spikes, if I haven't booby-trapped the porch with a tripwire connected to a crossbow mounted behind the door then it must mean that he's my bestest friend forever. Apparently that also means that he should come and go as he pleases, and help himself to food, to drink, or to anything that catches his eye while he's here.

And I'm the one in therapy.

Experiences like this give me that "Truman Show" feeling that my life is scripted by a soap-opera author. That I'm on CCTV 24/7 and my pitiful excuse for a life is designed with the sole purpose of entertaining the millions of people who watch the show every week.

Is it me? Is this behaviour normal? Is this the best I can expect from all my nextdoor neighbours from now on? What the fuck?!

Hold on a sec, let me get this straight.

Despite friends telling me I'm reasonably attractive, stylish, funny, thoughtful, a "find", "one in a million" bla bla bla I've tried for nearly a year to get a date with a woman I hand-picked from hundreds of others who has already told me that she wants to live with me and have kids with me, and yet I've got nothing. Zip. Nada. Fuck-all. Not even a measly first date. At the same time, I have a housemate who has done the dishes less than half-a-dozen times since I've lived here, working out to be roughly once every two-and-a-half months on average. He's never mopped the floor. He's never cleaned the kitchen. The only time he cleans anything at all is when he knows his girlfriend is on her way over. And on top of all that, I have a next door neighbour who I'll probably find spooned up beside me in bed when I wake up tomorrow morning if I'm foolish enough to leave the doors and windows unlocked tonight.

And yet people look at me like I'm crazy when I tell them that sometimes my disorders make me feel like it's me versus the rest of the world and I'm losing on a minute-by-minute basis.

Christ on a fucking bike...is this as good as it gets?

Dog day aftermath

Sheesh, yesterday was a rough day. Lots of navel-gazing, obsessive self-analysis, followed by a tumble into depression in the evening. I ended up washing down my daily venelafaxine dose with a bottle of white wine.

On days like that I get the "what's the point in trying" feeling and have a tendency to just write the day off. When you feel that bad, sometimes it's too difficult to work your way out of it so on occasion I'll go to bed early and miserable in the hope that I'll feel better the next day. I hit the sack circa 9pm yesterday, but I didn't get to sleep until the early hours of this morning. The fucking stalker called me five times last night while I was trying to get to sleep so I just let the battery on the phone run flat. Earlier he popped round and knocked on the door (thank heaven for small mercies) too but I managed to persuade my housemate to answer it while I cowered in the kitchen, making a bacon sandwich whilst sitting on the kitchen floor so he couldn't see me through the kitchen window.

I don't know what it is that I'm doing wrong, but I seem to get only the kind of social company and contact that I don't want, and none of the kind of contact that I want and need. I guess I'll just have to muddle onwards, keep concentrating on me and the things I need to get done, and hope everything else works itself out in the background. Unfortunately the harder I try, the worse I seem to make things.

Anyway, I've sent the e-mail to my Mac store bosses to solicit feedback on how well I'm doing and I feel a little better for sending it. I also awoke this morning to find I have the day off - I'd completely forgotten about it and - unusually - I don't have individual or group therapy today so it is a genuine, 24-karat day off.

Wow...what'll I do? Probably laundry and house-move planning, although I should probably do something 'nice' for me too. Just as long as it doesn't cost more than ten bucks *smiles*.

Six-blade knife

Yowch. Just got back from a rather analytical, painful session with the shrink.

I remember my Dad warning me a year or two ago that such detailed, uncompromising self-analysis was often a painful experience. But there I go...doing it again.

When my shrink asks me how my week was I usually break the answer up into thirds - work life, social life, and love life. Socially speaking my 'friend' relationships seem stable. I'm just about coping with the needy demands of the stalker next door, though I have had to acknowledge that dealing with him is physically and mentally exhausting me. Still, in eight days from now he'll be gone forever so I don't need to hold on much longer. At home my landlord/housemate's habits and patterns haven't changed at all but I've found somewhere else to live and handed in my notice. Thus the state of the house and the fact that I am not permitted to do what I want when I want are having less of an effect on me. Kudos to me: I have recognised that particular problem, taken action, and solved it. Now it is no longer a matter of chance, but simply a matter of time. The only thing I'm a little disappointed with is the lack of physical exercise I've been able to fit in. Then again, I did make a conscious decision to prioritise my new job and make sure I have it pinned down before I start to pack out my calendar any more. Besides, hunting for a new place to live took up a huge amount of time even though it has proven time to be well-spent. I suppose I should probably give myself a break considering everything I've had on my plate lately.

Work-wise things seem to be going better than they have in a long while. I'm a month into the Mac job and on the brink of soliciting some feedback on how I'm doing. Aside from the lateness, I'm hoping they've found me to be a breath of fresh air after the problems they've had with their staff earlier this year. I need to hear it though, and - more importantly - I know myself well enough to know that I need to hear positive feedback if positive feedback is due. I am always pleased to have concluded anything that's a direct result of me knowing me better than before, and knowing what I want and need. I'm not doing much writing at the moment but, then again, I do have two house-moves and a number of other things to get planned, organised, and executed upon.

The love life *sighs*. I can't remember the last time I had anything positive to say about this, and I can't tell you how that drains me, saps me, ensures that I won't ever quite feel content and secure. Two hours ago I was explaining to my shrink how bittersweet it is to hear from the invisible woman that she's doing well. I'm not lying when I say that it brings a smile to my face to read (we only ever correspond by e-mail these days) about how well she's doing and how good she feels. And that doesn't even include the positive conclusions I am able to make based on the way in which she is communicating, regardless of what she actually says or the specific words she uses.

However, as I say, the feeling is bittersweet, and that smile I mentioned is so fragile and short-lived. After all, whenever she tells me she's feeling better then it makes me want to ask just one question, "So, are you well enough for us to get together? If only for a coffee? A chat? A five-minute walk down the beach? A one-minute telephone conversation? Something? Anything?"

But I can't say that. I can't ask that. Whenever I have in the past it has led only to a disagreement or - worse - an argument.

So I recited all this to the shrink and she totally caught me with my pants down. I should have seen it coming. Whenever she starts a sentence with the words, "I think it's interesting that..." it usually means I'm about to have to admit something. On this occasion she reminded me of the day Nicole asked me for a divorce. I was very, very ill at the time, and I think I just said, "Wow, what a pisser". One of the tell-tale signs of depression is that one takes the path of least resistance, whatever it might be. So if someone asks you for a divorce, you just say, "Oh alright then," as long as it means you don't have to engage, converse, or commit. I was utterly poker-faced, logical, as cold and calculating as a psycopath. The only thought that kept bouncing around in my head was, "Well, what's the point in staying married to someone who's just told you they're not in love with you anymore? Who wants to be in a loveless marriage?" Basically, it really didn't matter what I felt or didn't feel. I couldn't make up the ground for what Nicole didn't feel anymore.

My shrink then reminded me of what I'd said about Nicole and my differences, that - at the time - I felt like I couldn't ask for what I wanted in life, but especially not in the bedroom. My shrink reminded me of how I'd felt outraged that, during the dying months of my marriage, I felt I was being judged or criticised for even hinting at anything that wasn't the missionary position or lying back and thinking of England. That because I was able to be more mature about it than my ex and attempt a frank, adult conversation I was made to feel that my meagre requests clearly classified me as a certifiable, drooling, kiddy-fiddling pervert.

And then my shrink delivered a thundering left hook: "So, if I understand you correctly, what you're saying is that the relationship got to a point where you were afraid to ask for what you wanted because of the consequences you feared, and because you felt you would be judged by them?"

"Yes," I replied.

"So how does that situation differ from your current situation where, again, you are unable to ask this new woman for the things you need from a relationship?"

"Shit," I thought. "Shit shit shit. She's got me. How did I not see that one coming?"

But as much as I try to deny it, my shrink has a point. Am I just be repeating the same pattern of behaviour and the same mistakes as before? What is it with me? Do I only ever want and need those things I can never have? I can't even dismiss her question as irrelevant because it comes from someone who doesn't really know me, the same way I dismissed the criticisms of me made by the invisible woman's friends - that I've learned of slowly and only by piecing together mere scraps of information. Nope, if one thing's for sure it's that my shrink knows me - the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of me. Fuck. I feel hollow again. Transparent. Shallow. Weak. Listless. Haunted. Cursed.

I was stumbling, reeling, teetering backwards and unable to get the horizon to stay flat where it was supposed to be.

Her follow-up question came as the relief of the ringing bell to the bloodied boxer. "Why do you think you are suddenly thinking about this again?" At last, an easy question. "It's the holidays," I frowned. "Thanksgiving was horrible. I'm dreading xmas, just the thought of sitting down to an xmas dinner for one. And it'll be a year on the 28th November."

"A year?" My shrink looked perplexed, like I'd used one of those words commonplace in the UK but unheard of here in the great white North.

"A year since I first started corresponding with her. Our first anniversary," I half-laughed, half-groaned.

"And how do you feel about that?" Ah yes, the 'old chestnut' of psychoanalytic questions.

"Well..." I paused. "On the positive side I feel that this situation, this person requires a certain kind of guy. Not anyone would have the patience or the understanding for this kind of, uh, scenario. It feels like it only reinforces what I always suspected about this - I mean that we're so well-matched for each other."

"And the other side?"

It's a year...a year!" I felt like the butt of everyone's jokes. The fool. The sap. I don't mean to sound pompous when I say I've seen a lot. The birth of the microchip. The collapse of the Berlin Wall. The Rubik's Cube. The sea bed 50 feet below the bay waters of Curacao. The internet. And I've worked in technology for the majority of my tenure in the PR industry. I've seen how much the world can change in a day, even an hour.

Yet here I was again, trying to justify to myself why I couldn't stand my ground and list my demands, and more importantly walk away if I didn't get them...within a fucking year f'chrissakes! The eyes were fogging, the knees subsiding, the ropes to my left just out of reach of my left glove and thus unable to help steady me. I was already on an express train to the canvas, face-first, when she delivered the knockout blow.

"I don't understand why one year is so significant," the shrink persisted. "It's just a number, a quantity..."

"She doesn't give me hope," I blurted out. "She talks about feeling better but not about getting together. So every time she seems to be doing well, it's not a cause to celebrate...it just makes it harder to beat off the cognitive distortions."

"Are they cognitive distortions though? When was the last time she said something that gave you hope?"

I wanted it to end right there. My shrink had arrived at the same place I already was: wondering whether the invisible woman was waiting to get well enough to be with me, or waiting until I got bored and gave up.

As Thomas Edison observed, "Faith, as well-intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction. Faith in fiction is a damnable false hope".

NIB

Well, things seem to be going ok at the moment, although it would be untrue to say there isn't upheval right now. It's all good stuff though.

The invisible woman is recovering. I don't have to take her word for it either, I can tell. Even through the piss-poor interpersonal communication medium of e-mail, I can tell. Even better, it's not just from the absence of anything my keen Spidey sense might detect as cognitive distortion. She's funny, laughs easily, is relatively curious and talkative, and communicates with a steady stream of positivity. I just wish I didn't have to refer to her as "the invisible woman". I don't like it. I don't like her e-mail address either. It's just a pseudonym, but it doesn't describe her the way I imagine she really is. Mind you, I've been wrong before.

She rarely mentions future plan though. At my end of things there's lots going on. There's an imminent move - I've told two landlords I'm interested, and I'm waiting to hear from my first choice before I decide what to do about the second. I'd save $600 pa with the first and $840 pa on the other. I won't drone on about that any more until I know exactly where I'm headed.

Regardless, there'll be the chunky furniture to extract from my ex- eighth floor downtown condo. The most notorious of these is the sarcastic sofa bed up in the mezzanine. We're not talking Ikea here either, so if I were to disassemble it I'd need a PhD to rebuild it. Extracting it whole wouldn't be a problem if it didn't weigh more than the average family SUV. I guess you just don't plan for living in a studio apartment when you're married LOL! Then there's the sofa bed's sidekick, the Kramfors. It's a rather well-endowed sofa at seven feet long, and unusually for a piece of Ikea furniture, it cannot be disassembled. I could take the cushions off it, but it'd still be seven feet long.

When it comes to the kitchen table and all four kitchen chairs, there are only ten separate furniture parts. Total. Unfortunately, again we hadn't planned on practicality. The table top is all one piece, round, wider than my armspan, and constructed solely of 2cm-thick glass. Maybe I can drill a hole through the centre, turn it into the front wheel of a penny farthing, and ride it to the new place.

All I'm saying is that all the above is just one of the two moves I'll need to have planned and organised in advance.

Work-wise I'll need to kick-off my Apple online training, which actually means I'll need to squeeze that somewhere into my own time. The job itself seems OK though.

I have to go if I'm gonna have time to make an omelette before group.

Phewf...

...I'm through it. That was notably quick too, but I'm not getting into details now: it's 1:57am.

Lucky I'm off tomorrow!

How the Glinch Stole Thanksgiving

Well, I wouldn't recommend this feeling to anyone.

I'd been moping around before I even got to work today but it's worse now. I closed up the store sometime between six and six-thirty this evening and stepped out onto Queen Street East. It was already dim and cool, but most of all, still. Queen East is normally bustling even late in the afternoon but the Thanksgiving plague had apparently taken everyone. In the houses on the street, the lights were on but everyone was staying home.

It was eerily quiet as I trudged Westwards towards the bus stop. The wind and rain from the previous few days had disappeared, and the sun did it's best to fight inevitability but the last light of day was disappearing before the bus even arrived.

I wished it was sunny. The great thing about sunshine is that it gives you the excuse to wear sunglasses. The eyes are the window to the soul and with shades I could've hidden the fact that I felt as though I would burst into tears at any moment, that I felt hollow, that it seemed the next decent gust of wind might blow me down the road like an empty Tim Hortons cup. I ended up standing on the opposite side of the road to the bus stop so that I wouldn't be in clear view of the other people waiting.

It feels like heartbreak. It feels as if I've just lost something or someone. Physically, my shoulders are slouched, I can barely pick up my feet to walk, and I'm moving about the place very slowly with an extremely nonplussed look on my face. The only fast thing is my typing but after ten years of writing for a living, that's unsurprising. Mentally, I lack motivation. The burger I bought en route home is sitting in the kitchen as I type because I have no appetite. I don't feel like doing anything that requires thinking or moving.

Emotionally, I'm in bits. There is nothing like a 'family' holiday to highlight the fact that I'm 38, no longer married, and sans famille in this massive country. Even when trying to look into the future there is nothing visible - let alone promising - along the lines of family, lover, or partner. I do try not to think about it - I try to think about how cool it'll be to have my own place instead. But, I am a victim of my own efforts. In the thinking, learning, researching and everything else I've done in the last year or two, the spin-off benefit has been that I now know myself much better. The downside is that I know that the reason why I feel like there is a gaping, raw hole in my life is because there is a gaping, raw hole in my life. It's where my wife and kids are supposed to be. Like my Grandfather before me, without that feeling of connection, the feeling that I'm needed or wanted, I feel untethered. I am the errant canoe that slips its mooring rope, and drifts slowly into the lake mist, never to be seen again.

Emotionally, the other downer is that what I am currently experiencing makes me realise that I really need to get my shit together in the next two months. The only difference between tonight and Christmas Eve will be that the temperature will be lower, and my emotions running higher. Because my job is a retail one, we'll probably be working right up to the last minute so I can't jet off to the UK for xmas as I might do ordinarily. I will be here, in Toronto, alone.

So, by then I need to be stronger. Much stronger.

At least I can take my meds soon. Just another 109 minutes to go...

Thanksgiven

Once again a Canadian holiday has crept up on me.

It's Thanksgiving this weekend, one of my arch-nemesis holidays during the year that helps to encourage the feeling that I'm utterly alone. It's not as bad as Christmas, but - for example - it hits home when even my own street seems deserted first thing on a Saturday morning. Indeed this last quarter of the year is potentially the toughest to deal with.

First there's the weather. Persistent rain has prevented any mountainbike rides in the valley, and it's suddenly cold in the mornings and evenings. I'm well aware that once the weather really turns, it's gonna be months before I can ride properly again. Then there's all the family-oriented holidays - Thanksgiving is followed by Hallowe'en, and Hallowe'en is followed quickly by Christmas which, without family, means nothing.

In moments of downtime I wonder what I'd be like as a Dad, how it would feel to be part of a family, what fun it would be to have kids at this time of year. Being infected with their excitement and sheer glee, and experiencing the joy of getting kids ready for costume parties et al. It's a life I've been close to, but haven't yet achieved.

Thus for the next three months I will have to carefully observe how I'm feeling, and try to make sure I don't end up alone with booze. A joint actually relieves any feelings of loneliness and makes my situation more palatable. Alcohol, however, accentuates any feelings of depression so despite the general 'party' feeling of this time of year I will need to make sure I have company when I need it, and do not mistakenly rely upon anyone or anything that cannot sustain me.

Naturally my thoughts often drift to the invisible woman and her daughter at times like this. I already know I've missed the daughter's eighth birthday, and I suspect the IW's own birthday is in this part of the year. I'll probably end up missing that too though. Such omissions make me feel that the life I yearn for is slowly slipping through my fingers. I want to ask "when" or even "if" regarding the topic of us getting together, but that's proven counter-productive in the past so all I can do is wait and hope. As Nietzsche said, "Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."

A friend in need is...is...a restraining order in the making, actually...

As I said to my shrink an hour or two ago, "I really can't think of anything causing me anxiety right now".

That's a pretty peculiar, if not downright uncharacteristic thing for someone with GAD to say. The progress is undeniable though, as both the blue and red lines on the graph show. When they both cross the 'x' axis, I'm cured LOL!

The biggest thing worrying me was getting the job. The next biggest thing was chatting to my landlord about moving out. Now that both these things are achieved it would (albeit slowly) appear that I have less, if not no things to fret about and just a big fat hole in the future for me to fill with things I can actually look forward to. Assuming I can cling on to the job, that is.

How bizzare.

I don't know quite what to make of it all. Every now and then I'm gripped by fear that there's something I've forgotten, but when I think about it there really isn't anything hanging over me right now. I guess that having to wait for a year to feel that way makes that feeling unusual when it finally arrives.

Things seem OK though. I've managed not to repeat my tardiness at work, although bedding down my sleep schedule is still taking extra perseverance. The needy neighbour is playing a role in fucking this up by hunting me down and taking up all the time I have whilst at home. I want to spend as little time with him as possible because I already feel he's sucking the life out of me, yet he seems to want to hang out for every free nanosecond. I'd prefer to go to bed early enough to be able to hit the gym before work but all he wants to do is stay up as late as possible, smoke as much weed as possible (my weed, that is), and get drunk.

Then again, he is more than ten years my junior.

So whilst I will genuinely miss parts of his personality and company when he goes home to Alberta in two or three weeks, I won't miss him stalking me. Indeed, he seems to be a rather peculiar chap given that he has none of the social norms that usual apply to personal space, privacy, and boundaries. During the last month or two, amongst other things he's: (a) knocked on the front door at some point between midnight and 1am, after staggering home drunk from the pub; (b) called or texted me every day about dinner plans even though I've made no dinner plans with him; (c) called me two weeks running while I was in group therapy, when I'd asked him not to; (d) called me SEVEN TIMES IN ONE DAY when I didn't answer his first call. Just yesterday he invited himself to work out with me in the morning when I really didn't want him around.

He called me ELEVEN times between circa 0630 and 0930 that day. Thankfully, my mobile phone was still in my coat pocket downstairs so I didn't hear it ring LOL!

I'm cogniscent that, being depressed and anxiety-ridden, it seems a bit rich for me to turn down company when I've yearned for it so much. Jeez though, I have my limits. And I need to look after myself before I worry about adhering to anybody else's agenda or needs. Besides, this guy and his stalking habits just aren't normal.

For example, he cant seem to use doors. Instead of knocking on the door, he has a habit of walking around the house from window to window, peering in until he can see me and then knocking on the window. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer talking face-to-face rather than talking through the wire mesh that stops mosquitoes infesting the house through the hole. He's made me jump out of my skin several times now, especially since the evenings have started to draw in and with the lights on inside, it's impossible to see outside.

So these days I don't stroll up to the front door and slam it behind me when I return home from work or shrinkage. Conversely, once I'm within 200 metres of the house I start to tip-toe. 50 metres out I silence my cell phone (so if he calls it, he can't hear the ringtone). 25 metres out and my house key is out of my pocket and gripped tight in my sweaty palm. 10 metres out and I make sure I clear my throat, cough, sneeze, and perform any other necessary bodily functions that make any sound whatsoever. Inside ten metres and the SAS have nothing on me - I dart from shadow to shadow, gripping the loose change in my pocket like it's the driver's seat armrest in the Space Shuttle cockpit so that it won't rattle.

The gravel driveway is crunchy underfoot so I sidewind to the left, taking the edge of the front steps in a single bound because they creak like buggery when stepped upon. I've now mastered the art of getting the carnivorous* screen door open, the door unlocked, and me inside before the beeping of the burglar alarm can be heard outside. I leave my coat and bag somewhere that they cannot be seen from ANY window, and then often sneak upstairs to cower in my room until I know it's safe. There's been times when my housemate has arrived home to find me sitting in pitch-blackness, because I know one weak moment in front of a light switch and my presence will be given away. Seems immature, but some days I just can't face dealing with him.

Let's not forget that for a two or three-week period, the only times he seemed to show up were when I'd just poured myself a drink, just lit a cigarette, just lit a spliff, or just dished up dinner. It really began to get on my tits. Then, he started to say things like, "I saw your light was on so I thought I'd pop round and...[bla bla bla]".

Saw my bedroom light was on?

Considering the disorder I have it's a godsend that I'm not peeling off the wallpaper and ripping up the floorboards in my room, hunting for hidden cameras and microphones. Doesn't he have anything better to do than keep me under constant surveillance?

Apparently not. Just two more weeks to hang on though...!

*Yes, carnivorous. My screen door is a carnivore, and on several occasions has taken a vicious bite out of my Achilles tendon as I try to get through the fucking doorway without it tripping me up, or the door handle trying to give me anal pleasures as it whistles quickly and permanently shut like a bear trap.