I've been thinking about the term of endearment 'Honey'. To me, it speaks of an intimacy reserved for very specific relationships, specifically one for people in a long term relationship. Perhaps this is because it was my parents' choice when speaking to one another; 'Sweetie' was always used for us kids. Often they would use it in passing, almost as if it coincidentally happened to be both of their given names.

"Do you, Honey S., take Honey V. as your lawfully wedded...?" the rabbi would have said.

It was most often said with affection, but my favourite was always when they used it during an argument. My parents have never fought, not once. They argue, debate, disagree but never fight, and frequently, when in the midst of one of these 'discussions', they would toss out an emphatic Honey. Now this was not, as one might see on WASPy television shows, a way of ensuring us kids that this was not heading for family court. Rather, it was, in the nicest way possible, a way of saying, "Actually, you block head, I'm right."

Other times, it was said accompanied with a sigh. The adult sigh is, I feel, a gift with purchase when a couple has children. I have a childless aunt and uncle who I don't believe have sighed since the 70's. It's not as though my parents' sighing Honeys were always directly about us, but rather the state of their lives in general. Even if it was commiseration about work, the undertone was still, "Sucks about your job, honey. Would sure suck less if on top of that we didn't have these three schmucks running around our house."

I have many terms of endearment for friends.

'Sweetie' is the most general. It can be used for any female friend and, in theory, any mincing homo that would appreciate the female allusion. Sweetie is also the whitest term of endearment. You see it all over predominantly Caucasian shows. Think Friends, Desperate Housewives and Mad About You, the last of which pretty much jumped the shark on Sweetie.

'Baby' or 'Babe' is what I use for my nearest and dearest. While most of these have crept so far back on the back burner that I don't think we're on the same stove anymore, the original usage was meant to imply that we were closer than others. Sometimes this was true. Babe is frequently used when giving advice, counselling or even disputing, which makes it akin to 'Hon'. It is very important to note that Hon, while a diminutive of Honey, is by no means related to the topic of this discussion. It's like Jackson 5 Michael and post-nose Michael. Different entities entirely.

I suppose a paragraph on male terms of endearment is required. These are limited to your basic 'Dude' (usually a greeting or as a replacement for their name, always emphatic), 'Bud'/'Buddy' (only for nice guys) and a slew of Ebonics-inspired pronouns like 'Homeslice', 'Homeskillet' and 'Bizatch'.

'Lover' is always meant in jest and can be said to members of either sex. This can never be uttered to an actual lover otherwise there ain't gonna be no more lovin'. Trust me.

'Honey' is for the actual lover. Or so I imagine. My new thing when sizing someone up and judging whether or not we have a future with an adopted Himalayan whistle kid together, is to ask myself, "Do you see yourself calling him Honey?" Not like Honey-our-love-shall-light-an-eternal-flame-in-the-Kingdom-of-Heaven! More, How-was-your-day-Honey? or Honey-can-you-pick-up-some-goat-for dinner? or Honey-that-goddamned-whistle-kid-got-out-of-his-cage-again. If I cannot imagine asking him these questions, then there is no future. End of story. We may continue the lover-ing, perhaps even form a close friendship, sometimes even after the lovin' up is done with. But without a Honey dream, it ain't happening. And what if there is? In this case, I usually turn into a mute with no ability to actually be my delightful self, but rather make lame jokes about SNL or fidget with my sweater, which has all of a sudden become too small and oh god, why do I look like such a mess?!

Presuming we can actually get through my initial psychotic episode together, my beehive is rarin' to go. You may insert your own 'honeycomb' and 'dripping' innuendos now.

Pwn'ed.



I have no clue why this used to matter to me so much.

Dear Hottie Who Waters the Plants at Work,

Wherefore have you condemned me to this hell, my HWWPW? Why must you be so infinitely smokinglier than everyone else in a 2 km. radius and yet only make a single brief appearance every week? You taunt, you tease, you are a walking checklist of every single physical quality I hold so dear to my heart. What explicit detail is it that I love so much? Let’s walk through it together, shall we? Is it your frame, noble and broad at 6’1”ish, trim yet sturdy in magnificent balance that makes me want to go throw up right now? Is it your auburn hair, dignified in its slightly-spiked darkness, not flaming and listless like most of its pock-marked Gingey counterparts? Does this fine shade spring from thine chestal region as well, creeping just below the single open-button on your well-sized button down? This is a question I have, beatific HWWPW. Is it your glasses, or even the mere fact that you wear them? Contacts be damned! Is it your high buttock, upon which rests your magnetic swipe card, dangling in a dance of lustful abandon? Is it your cuff watch? Your well-fitted jean? Or simply the way you stretch up to those hanging potted plants? O, to gaze upon your theoretically-shapely calves as they lift you to such heights! I adore thee so, HWWPW. Winding my way through a blue maze of cubicle dividers for the exquisite torture that is watching you tilt a watering can, you the seeming by-product of a union between lumberjack and Shopper’s Optical model. Take me away from all this industrial park madness! Let us away in your 1997 Chevy Malibu to seek great adventures, probably in some maintenance closet at your dispatch centre!

HWWPW, I love you.

I totally lol'ed in rl at this today. I gotta stop with all the emo postings. Fag.

While riding the bus on my way to work one day, I happened to look up in time to see a young woman - one could even say ‘girl’ in the colloquial sense - offering the bus driver a cookie upon boarding. I was rather delighted at seeing this as I enjoy random acts of kindness towards strangers. They’re reeeeeeally good…, she said temptingly to the driver, who required little temptation to indulge in an early morning sugar rush.

From the back, I could see that she was tallish in heels, a nice overcoat, and kicky scarf and had slightly tussled loose curls spilling to just below her shoulders. What a lovely girl, I thought, the perfect combination of classy (scarf) and bohemian (baked goods). I should note here that while the baking was in a Tupperware container rather than a vintage tin, I imagined that she was new to the latter temperament and still gave her some Boho points. It wasn’t until she turned around that I saw just how new she was.

The thing was, I knew this girl, or rather, we had met on a few different occasions at parties - raves, to you not in the know. The first time I saw her, she was wearing a long black cape over a fuzzy pink bras. Yes, Heaven had lost an angel. We were at a small outdoor party in some rural town and spent most of the night together, exchanging stories of our lives and telling the other how amazing we thought they were. The real truth was that I found her a bit repulsive. I mean this not in the callous sense, as there was nothing inherently wrong with her, but there was something about the package that made me uncomfortable. Perhaps it was the slightly nasal and lispy voice that would have been very appropriate in a porno film or her lips, which were almost too full for her face, like Julia Roberts without the nice eyes. Still, she was very nice and complimentary and in my then-current state, flattery is the surest way to garner my affections or at least my time.

This night would go on to repeat itself a month later at an all-night affair in a campground an hour and a half outside of Winnipeg. The meeting was again by fluke and my heightened senses caused me to remember her only with fondness, which was how we ended up making out in a field with my top off. Somewhere around that time, I stopped enjoying myself. Perhaps it was when a rogue car, driven by other partiers shone its headlights on us and jeered. I imagine that for the average, heterosexual male, this would be tinged with a certain amount of self-satisfaction, if accompanied at all by embarrassment. However, for me, all I could think was that if I was going to get caught on top of a girl, this would not be the one I would choose. The events of the rest of the night unfolded in much the same way: watching the northern lights dancing like a ballet, listening to music in my car, invoking poetic analogies (“Violins are like one night stands; cellos are forever”). All the right things with the wrong person, which is how one could characterize most of my rave experiences. I always had this fantasy of making an amazing new friend at one of these things. Perhaps everyone else there does as well and that’s why we’re all so nice to one another in 30 second soundbites. Anything more is too much of a commitment and I certainly didn’t want to commit to her. It sounds monstrous to be so dismissive of another person, but where were we but a zoo of unhappy animals acting on both base and altered instincts. Whatever the reasoning, this was not the person I should have been with.


I ran into her last year just as I was getting on a bus. Normally rave folk have no appeal to me outside their natural environment, but something in her dogtooth jacket combined with the fact that all my friends seemed to be leaving the city inspired me to exchange numbers. We made plans for lunch the next week at the food court near where I worked, but I had to cancel due to a forgotten rehearsal and never called her back to reschedule. The guilt was slightly gnawing for a while before I realized that I didn’t feel bad about bailing but rather what she must have thought of me for not calling her back. Clearly this wasn’t about her and never was.

I pretended to be grossly engaged in my half-read-and-due-in-two-days library book and didn’t look up until I heard the pop of a Tupperware container and then the sweet, nasal lisp of her offering the driver another cookie as she was getting off the bus.

It's a rather odd sensation to feel as though you're damaged goods before you've even began. It's akin to being a dented can of tuna at Safeway. People notice that can, to be certain, probably pausing momentarily to ponder what circumstanced led to its indentation. Most likely a clumsy, blemished stock boy. Yet, after this diversion, they inevitably decide on an undented can of tuna, the safe choice.

That poor fucking can of tuna. It's perfectly good inside and yet know one really wants to give it a go when it is surrounded by all it's perfectly cylindrical cousins, who may very well be discovered to have gone bad themselves upon opening.

That's really what it is, isn't it: you want to be opened, want the chance to show that you're not spoiled and that you would taste lovely with a tomato on rye. It's understandable. The metaphorical dent can be very tiring after carrying it with you your whole life. It's not that people are mean about it, the odd car full of drunken asshole at 2am aside. They don't intend to be rude when they ask you about it on the street, and really isn't intent the most important thing in these situations? You kind of like it at first, think you're being checked out even, until the brow furrows and the eyes move down from your face to your feet and then back up again with curiosity, sympathy even. Hardly the lustful gaze you had anticipated. Sometimes they ask you about it, again, without malice, but real wonder. Never a pleasant experience, you stop - or maybe you don't - and tell them that it's medical, wait for their reaction, sometimes a "That's cool. We were just wondering" (they're never alone, always in a small group) and you continue on your way. Sometimes if you're feeling particularly pissy, you tell them that it's a 46-letter medical condition and would they like the entire name of it or simply an abbreviation. You always regret this the moment you say it as the embarrassment creeps across their face. Sometimes if you're tired or maybe a little sad and don't feel like this inquisition, you lie. You tell them that you were in Afghanistan and had both of your legs blown up below the knee. To sell it, you'll knock on your shin, as though it made a hollow noise that they can't hear. Surprisingly, this last response offers less guilt than one would think. You're not proud of it, but somehow you feel you've earned the chance to be seen as more noble than who you really are, earned through the constant efforts it takes to just stay on your feet. They don't know, nor should they. If they knew, then they would realize that the best thing in this circumstance is no comments at all.

A couple nights ago, I was in top form. Truly, by shiz, it smelled not. Along with some new-ish friends, I went to this gender cabaret, if you will, with all different G.L.B.T.T.T.T.T.T.Q.O.4.&. folks doing whatever they do best. There was some refreshingly impassioned performances from men, women and everything in between, including a kick ASS belly dancer that performed to my girl Natacha Atlas's "I Put a Spell On You". I felt awesome and clearly, this could not be permitted to last.

When he walked by me the first time with a slight glint in his eye, I was tempted to be thrown. The 'he' in question was what turned out to be a misfired fling last June, with me thinking it was leading to a relationship and him telling me four weeks in that we were just friends. You know, cause I wake up most of my friends with morning head. In any case, the ending was uncomfortable but not altogether acrimonious, and we kept in very light touch, an msn IM or facebook message here and there.

In retrospect, I should have learned from the past that the occasion winking emoticon does not romantic intent make. Perhaps it was the fact that no one has stepped up to succeed him as my most recent, but in times of want, I still think of this pischer. In any case, I knew that there would be a moderate likelihood of seeing him and the lopsided grin was not altogether unexpected. However, on the next pass, the grin was accompanied by a playful little pinch on my side; the next was a hand-grab/tickle and the final one, when my coat was on and it was clear that I was leaving, was a full-on 5-second embrace.

God, it was nice.

It's a tad pathetic, to cling so dearly to something so insignificant, but with all apologies to rationality, it was.

Upon my return home, I wrote a simple if open-ended Facebook message:

"You looked really great tonight.

-D"

Ok, so not that open-ended. It definitely seemed to imply, "I gotta thing, you gotta thing, maybe we could have a thing..."

When the response "So did you ;-)" appeared, I won't say that I wasn't a bit excited, winking emoticon, be damned!

"So if you look really great and I look really great, why don't we ever hang out anymore?" I replied.

"i dunno," came the response.

"So, would you like to sometime?"

"It wouldn't be like before david. I'm seeing someone..."

"..."

I'm not sure what element got to me the most. Was it the use of my name, so disgustingly sympathetic in it's use, as if to say, "Oh, you poor thing...no." Was it the lack of punctuation and capitalization, reminding me of how wrongly matched we were and would ever be? Or was it the ellipses, echoing the use of my name, pathetically outlining how easy it was for someone like HIM to find someone and how someone like ME would forever remain a lapdog, begging for scraps of affection.

In the end, I responded with something polite, like, "Oh that's great. How nice for you!" but I don't think either of us believed I meant it. Despite the mountainous history that could have foreshadowed this event, I still maintain my right to be bitter. You can't treat people like they're your prize and then say shit like "I'm seeing someone dot dot dot."

I was getting so good at not doing the emo posts. Fuck you for being the cause. And for your ellipses.