It's a social visit. My neurologist and me. An annual tradition. This man who has known me since early adolescence, I go and see him ever twelve months. I take an afternoon off work, pay an insane amount for metered parking by the hospital (Twice as much as anywhere else in the city? These people should be shot.). I sit in his waiting room - perhaps five minutes, perhaps forty-five. He collects me and we head to his examination room, where, every year, a new resident doctor waits, anxious to see such a rare, nameless case. They're always quite lovely, a sharp contrast to him. Tall, wiry, sort of hideous, from a colonial nation - I'm convinced his entire family line did horrible things. He's brilliant, if a horrible human being. Cold, removed, occasionally droning on about hospital bureaucracy or making vague political remarks that are completely inappropriate coming from an MD. I don't care. I'm not here for any real reason.

He pokes. He prods. He pricks me with safety pins and touches a vibrating mechanism to my skin to see if I can feel it. Sometimes he attempts to fool me by making the sound of hitting the vibration device but stopping it before it reaches my skin. I always look away as though to show that I'm being a good sport, but I can tell. It sounds different when he stops the vibration.

He speak to the resident, using medical jargon he doesn't bother to explain to me. It doesn't matter. He tells the intern I'm a musician. They ask me how the deterioration affects my profession. He then takes the opportunity to prattle on about his childhood relationship to the recorder or how much his wife hates the bassoon.

He concludes by saying he has nothing more to say. He has other patients in far worse shape. He tells us one or two stories about them. He states that my numbers are good, commenting on my broad shoulders (lol), though in a rare moment of humanity he does acknowledge that good numbers in no way negates the functional deterioration I report. He then asks if I wish to see him again next year. This is a farcically meaningless question because we both know I have to. Not for him, of course. He's completely useless to me. But my insurer will have too many questions if I stop this annual pilgrimage, so I agree. He'll get to share me with his latest resident, and, in turn, I won't lose my livelihood. Not a bad trade, actually.

Maybe next year I'll bring a picnic,

 I loved the Bon Appetite YouTube...you know, before the whole we're-racist-pieces-of-shit thing.

One of my favourite contributors was Carla. Jews and Italians, you know? We just kind of get each other. Connection to family, connection to food, connection to feeling like the world is out to get us...very sympatico. And when she starts her own channel, the algorithm is all in. It's not fancy. Mostly weeknight recipes, nothing complex, but usually food I wouldn't make on my own. Fine. I barely watch, but it's nice to see the thumbnails.

And then the beans. Crispy tofu and green beans, no less (I'm a vegetarian now. Mostly.). Sounds incredible. Asian inspired. Mirin, soy, black vinegar. As if I've ever seen black vinegar. For weeks I think about making it, but the fucking black vinegar. Sure, there are specialty stores, but I'm just not going to make a special trip.

Tonight. A little toke. A little (lot) of vodka. So I order from a local dim sum place because one of the side effects of pandemic depression is that despite years honing culinary skills, delivery is more commonplace. To add insult to my injured Jewish guilt are four shrimp spring rolls. MSG, fuck me slowly, sideways, and upside down. They are incredible. The black vinegar they come with, not so much.

Black vinegar. I've been thinking of it for weeks, and though the spring rolls doused in chili sauce are long gone, I am left with a couple tablespoons of the stuff, enough to make this recipe.

Joy is not an easily found commodity these days. I think the last time I was happy was 2008. But I get the teensiest serotonin rush at the idea of cooking with this serendipitous liquid currently inhabiting a a plastic thimble. I carry my dish to the sink, reach for the lid and lift the container to put it on.

A soundless thud as it hits the counter, black gold spilling everywhere. My fingers, numb, hang in mid-air. 

It has been nearly four years since my body began decaying. It's never been great (see Not-So-Tiny Tim tag), but the overnight symptoms on April 7, 2008 and subsequent decline have ravaged a once joyful soul. I have fought. For security, for longevity, for companionship. I have won many of these battles (not the companionship), having a developed a sense of self-advocacy rarely seen apart from certain Family Ties alumni. I complain about snow in handicap parking spaces. I go on local radio to talk about discrimination faced at a neighbourhood establishment. I order wicked fuckin' cool canes on amazon dot com. In short, I take care of my shit.

And then a tiny container of black vinegar spills. It pools towards the sink, almost reaching but not quite, so small is its quantity. It forecasts my future, swirling on the granite like mist in a crystal ball. This is the best you will ever have it. Prepare to run, tumble, fall downhill towards...what? I have no idea. But the fingers are worse each month. Then each week. I've planned so much, fought so hard, but the reality slaps me in the mouth. This is the best you will ever have it. You can give up things you love. You can fight corporations. You can order shrimp spring rolls every night of the week without significant impact to your resources. But the one resource that is depleting exponentially faster before your very eyes is you. This is the best you will ever have it.

Hello, old friends.

Years ago, I thrilled the internet with tales of the hot guy who watered the plants at the temp job I had when I was 24. It was...a whirlwind. This was a time of confusion, high-waisted jeans and a plethora of innuendo using the word 'spout'.

Now, years later, my penchant for men in the service industry has not waned. No, no. If anything it has grown even larger. Is it due to nearly another decade of unsuccessful online dating apps? Or perhaps the fact I have more conversations with my paid personal trainer than any friend still on my Facebook list? Who's to say...

Loneliness. Loneliness is to say. Anxiety and Isolation also have some keen words.

Most recently, I went in hard on a young gentleman working at the service desk of a local auto mechanic shop. Now, I know what you're thinking:

"But of course! A car mechanic! It was in front of him all along!"

To be clear, that's stupid. The guy wasn't actually a mechanic, but rather a young, sensitive soul, probably just out of university, who was killing time until his songwriting career takes off. How do I know that he has music industry ambitions? WELL, when the company Christmas card came complete with all their employees' signatures on it, I found his full name, Googled the shit out of it, and came upon a Canadian Idol audition tape from 2010.

So that's pretty much where I'm at these days.

Not even a close friends pity-filled eyes when I showed her his Instagram account and his bio line said "taken" could deter me from my lust. Not actually, that was a pretty big boner killer. Also, her suggestion that I could make an electronic advance anyway was swiftly rebuffed, because here's the things with these fantasies: they stop being fun the second any sort of reality creeps in.

Writing pervy blog posts about strangers? Aww yiss. Actually talking to them in real life? Full-body hives.

And fuck that guy anyway, with his 2,000 Instagram followers, dreamy eyes, and Aryan Nation lookin' boyfriend. I have moved on to an emotionally distant burrito assembler at my local taqueria. His has the beginnings of a unibrow, a slight limp, makes possibly the most shittily-assembled burrito I have certainly ever experienced... and he's perfect.

Airbud meets Metropolis

Life is hard right now. Not like Syrian refugee hard. Not being held in detention for 30 hours at JFK hard. Just, like, I don't think I'm living the life I was meant to hard. And also I'm 3-fucking-2 and there are complications that come with that number that didn't exist when I first started this ten years ago.

Guys, I have a fucking dog. Do you know how restricted I am as a person because of a dog? Like, ruff rough stuff. I also have a mortgage. And a car. And a job that allows me to have these things. And I'm fucking lucky to have all that, as well as my white male privilege. I mean, I've got the queer gimp Jew thing, but still. These are complications as much as they are joys. Or what should be joys.

I am fucking miserable. Not just tonight but generally. Was I miserable ten years ago? Probably. Was I trying to do hot yoga via radiator heat in my first apartment and then blogging about it? Yes. But being miserable is okay when you still have the whimsy and naivety of youth that allows for such misadventure. Now I'm wise and miserable. And it licks taint.

Maybe I'm just a miserable person. And were I just a miserable person writing about their life and throwing it into the void of internet communications circa 2006 then that would be unremarkable, as we were all doing this shit in 2006. But maybe it isn't just that. Maybe this is an attempt to reclaim the fervour I had then, part of a journey to analyse what interested me enough in observing people on the bus or fabricating love affairs between me and the guy who watered the plans at work. And illustrate it all in Microsoft Paint. At least if you're miserable and passionate then shit can get accomplished. Or maybe I'll just write this one post and that will be it.

So I don't know. Don't hold me to anything. But I know it can't stay like this.

Dinner

Tonight I made dinner.

I made salmon with white wine and dill, roasted yams, and a caesar salad.

I made dinner.

I have not made dinner for a long time. About a year and a half. Not since I moved back from Toronto.

A year and a half ago, I was slightly defeated from three years of attempts to crawl out of solitude, but optimistic about what I was going towards. I had been working out three times a week with a trainer. My health had never been so good and my body reflected it. I saw the trainer, made shakes, cut the carbs after 6pm, drank seldomly, and did not engage in anything beyond alcohol. I made dinner a lot.

So then I moved back. I entered a profession. Got busy, got stressed. I stopped making dinner. I stopped training. I did, however, find something beyond alcohol, something that I largely control but occasionally gets the better of me, like an eighteen year-old in a bar fight. And when I lose that fight, I hate it. Not the first few hours, but those that follow, and the day or two afterwards. You can do the math - the benefits by no means outweigh the costs.

I was scared at first that this was addiction. It is not. I never choose it above anyone or anything I love. It's only there when I'm bored and lonely, popping up anywhere from once a week to once every 3 months. No, I won't be on Intervention anytime soon. But it takes something from me, even so. And my job takes something - a lot of somethings, actually - from me. My family gets a little bit, my friends get some too, when they're around.

And by the end, I'm so tired of lending out little bits, for both good and bad, that there's not a lot left. Not for the gym a mere four floors down. Not seeking new people or communities. Not for making dinner.

It's silly for an adult to wait on being rescued.

"I don't know why I can't be cooler about things. It's not something I remotely get off on; it's crippling at times. Shitty feelings just fester and I can't really resolve them or let it slide either. All this to say, I wish I could have been less dickish about things not going how I wanted them to. I can't rightfully say I can tell why it mattered so much at the time. But I feel that maybe I expected more of you than I do of most people, which is not fair, and I apologise for that. I still feel pretty icky about the way things wound up, but I'm acknowledging that it wasn't a one-sided transgression. We both have the ability to be awesome and terrible friends at the same time. I guess I lost sight of that.

"There's no real end game in writing this. I'm just sorry for reacting harshly (maybe a bit cruelly) to your last communication. Hope things are going well."


...is what I wrote a few nights ago when chemically altered but didn't send once sobered up. So it's here instead.

I need friends

I live in a neighbourhood that was recently named one of the most desirable in Canada. It's one of the more vibrant in Winnipeg, hosting not just wealthy artsy/academic types but also several low income housing units. My building is a five-storey yuppie haven with newly reno'ed hardwood floors, large windows, AC, and a bathroom with one of those bathtub shells that fits over the old one, with lots of shelves and stuff. I've only seen one tenant over thirty-five. His name is Daniel and he is a suspected alcoholic who sits on the front stairs in a stained tank top and fisherman's hat, smoking until even his eyes grow wrinkles. But enough on Daniel.

The building next to ours is a mere three storeys and, while not low-income housing, is certainly at a lower price point than my overpriced pad. It's a sunny day here. Warm without being hot, and the first time in weeks that the humidity has lifted and the sunlight comes down pure, as though swerving through and around water particles had somehow tainted it before now. Against my lease's regulations, I have removed my window screens to feel the sun and look out on the neighbourhood from above.

Below, in the shadow of our building, I see a woman. 30's, 40's. Hard to tell. She is dressed in a striped tank top and shorts, a cigarette in one hand, a tote bag in the other, with two more tote bags on each shoulder. She lays them down by the dirt beneath what I assume to be her window. From the three bags, she begins to remove rocks, varying in size from about that of an apple to a spaghetti squash. She lays them carefully, one by one, in an arch from one end of her window to the other, the tangent just touching the edge of the dirt where it touches the grass.

After ten minutes, she steps back, same cigarette in hand, to admire her work. I want to yell down to her, "Hey! You won't be able to grow anything there! There's no sunlight."

But I think maybe she knows that already. She's clearly a functional person, one who can afford nice-ish clothes, cigarettes, and means of transporting three bags of rocks. I feel like she knows something I don't. Maybe something philosophical about how in a world without flowers, rocks become things of beauty. Or some shit like that. I don't know. But it makes me sad. Not for her, but for my own lack of understanding.