CleverFox

Kerfuffle! What an awesome word for a dust-up.

I was in the middle of writing up a post on a forum about who I am and why the name and all that. An intro post. That'll have to wait. My father phoned. My mother is in the hospital. Her gall bladder is out. I'm going to go see her as soon as she's out of the immediate post-surgery recovery and into a room where she can have visitors. She's probably doing fine.

The last time I knew someone was in hospital it was my friend Tomena. She went in for diagnosis of some rather common symptoms. I don't remember the details exactly. Her man called me and asked me to let people know where she was. What hospital, what room, visiting hours, that kind of thing. I did. I was busy that week though. And she was doing fine. Two days later her man called me again. She'd passed away in the night. Quietly, painlessly, in her sleep. She just stopped. I hadn't gone to see her because there's always more days right? I mean, I had to work an hour overtime and I was tired so I didn't really want to go that night. And the next night I had a game, and I couldn't ditch on that. There were supposed to be more days.

I know my mother's fine. I know there's nothing in common with the two situations but the locale. But I'm still fighting with everything I've got not to panic, not to lose it. I feel small, I feel insignificant, I feel terrified, I feel human, I feel powerless.

Edit: I talked to her a little while ago. She's okay, sort of. Had an emergency appendectomy. Apparently my dad isn't really clear on what squishy inside parts are what. She's bombed to the gills on morphine, so I'm going to go see her tomorrow when she's likely to be a little more lucid.

Car got fixed, that's very good. It was easy, just required creative re-interpretation of the directions in the manual for changing a tail light. Apparently clockwise can mean either direction to mechanics. But whatever.

Finished a big project today, but not a leather one. At least it's not leathery yet. Our Saint Andrew's Cross is nearing completion. The construction is completely done. Now it's just up to me to pad the limbs and joints with some kind of closed cell foam and to put some leather over the padding to make it all sexy pretty. I'm really looking forward to this. It feels so good to MAKE something, to have this thing that didn't exist before some effort and some time and some thought all conspired. It's also going to be a fairly simple but interesting matter to put the leather on. Fun to be had I'm sure.

Really, I just wanted to brag about that.

Yesterday I went to Calgary to help a friend move. It was an experience. The moving part was pretty standard. Heavy things, stairs, all that jazz. The part that made it a real pain in the ass, that made me want to stomp on babies, was the dealings with U-Haul. Twice now I have witnessed that U-Haul can TAKE a reservation. But hey, anyone can TAKE a reservation. They do not seem however to understand what it means to HAVE a reservation. Having a reservation means that what you want is there for you when you go get it. It was not.

We drove all the way across Calgary, from the north east corner to the south west to get a U-Haul truck. During rush hour. And I discovered, much to my chagrin, that my left brake light is toast. No left turn signal. Can you imagine dear friends what it is like to merge into traffic on an extremely busy freeway without the means to signal your intention to do so? How about the number of times one wants to change lanes left on a drive all the way across Calgary and back? I bet you can. Go on, try.

Gonna have to get that bulb replaced today.

Since going into business for myself, I have had a few thoughts reinforced. One is that I operate in a very odd way, on a whole-life type scale. It works in some respects, but not so well in others. The things that I need tend to come to me when I need them most. So I've developed this nasty habit of sitting back and waiting for them to happen. Just because it seems I can rely on serendipity does not automatically mean I should though. I've got to start making things happen. And I had to ask for help with that yesterday. Apparently I'm not so good at that either.

The show in Winnipeg is coming up quicker than I expect. I'm going to have to decide what I'm taking, how much to charge for it, all that kind of thing. It's going to be tricky since it's my first show. I want to take a lot since there's a lot of things I can do, but at the same time I don't really want to generate a bunch of inventory and have it sit unsold. But at the same time I don't want to take just a few things and sell out with people still looking for gear. It's going to be a tricky balancing act.

The website is coming together. The framework is done, now the content needs to be added. Going to have to work on that over the next few days. It's imperative that the site get up and running ASAP. It's my advertising, at least the main part of it. I'm going to get business cards and flyers printed up too, but their purpose is really to drive traffic to the website. We'll see how that goes over the next few months.

I still catch myself thinking this will be easy. It's not. But it's worth it.

The past number of months have certainly been eventful. I for no adequately explored reason have chosen not to talk about them though. It's been a lot of strikes and a lot of gutters. I'll try to sum up briefly.

We came back from Montreal. We both want to go again.

I got laid off from Gravity Pope, where I'd been working. That's not too tragic, I really wasn't thrilled with the state of things there, and since I was laid off I get to ride the government gravy train for a while.

Being on the government payroll means I have the chance to make a right royal mess of my life and go into business for myself. I'm setting up a leatherworking business. Bondage gear, SCA stuff, equestrian and canine accessories, what have you. I'll make whatever I can. Thus far the bondage part of the business seems to be the strongest, followed by the SCA. But I'm just getting started with the tack and dog collars, so maybe there'll be some action there.

Part of the reason I'm doing this is I look at a lot of the stuff I see around at various shops that sell leather goods and think "What a piece of shit." I do this for fun, and I think I turn out better products than some of what my friends have paid for. I can not allow this state of affairs to stand. If anyone's going to get paid for making them leather goods, it should be me because then they'll get better stuff.

I'm apprehensive though. I know what the failure rates are for small businesses in this country. Is making good gear going to be enough? Getting a good name takes time, but I don't know how much time I can afford to spend developing my name. Hopefully a few events will help. I'm going to be making a lot of gear and hopefully going to Winnipeg in October to sell it at the Black And Blue ball there. And then some for Lupercalia here at home.

Behr and I still own a home. It's still excellent. As is behr. He makes me a very happy creature. We used said home for a LAN party recently, played a bunch of Unreal Tournament 2004 with a whole mess of people. That was a grand old time. We're probably going to do it again.

That's a quick rundown. Hopefully I'll stay on top of this thing a little better from now on.

There's this unwritten set of rules that seem to keep the pedestrians and the motorists of the city from gunning each other down in cold blood. After two days it appears to me that the rules are as follow.

1) Pedestrians will jaywalk wherever and whenever possible.
2) Motorists will not go out of their way to make it easy for pedestrians to jaywalk
3) Pedestrians will see to it that their jaywalking is not going to cause them to impact on a car.

The rules work. Cars don't slow down in traffic for no reason. They go where they mean to go, and at the speed they mean to. Pedestrians may move freely in the road in the gaps between cars. And so it operates. I have only once heard a horn honked at a pedestrian, no people leaning out their windows swearing, no shouts at disappearing bumpers. Hell of a system they have going here.

Behr and I went for a bit of a jaunt again this evening. We had two specific destinations. The first was John Fluevog's shoe shoppe. That was quite something. There's a number of styles that we don't carry at work that I'm most intrigued by. However, as behr so aptly pointed out, if we buy shoes we'll have to buy luggage to carry them since we're full up on all our baggage already. So I'm going to spend a couple of days deciding just how much I want a pair of Fluevogs. I won't rule out the possibility that it might be enough to buy luggage. Or express-post them to myself at home. Hmmmmmm, now there's an idea...

Our second target was La Banquise, a little 24 hour grill that reputedly has the best poutine in Montreal. And given that poutine is a quebecois invention, that would most likely make it the best poutine in the world. And based on my experiences to date, I think I can say that it is in fact the best in the world. The stuff they serve back home is a pale travesty of the genuine article. There's a proper poutine sauce, see. I'm not sure what's in it but it isn't just gravy. And shredded mozzarella on top? Fuck off with that. No. The genuine article has cheese curds so fresh they squeak between your teeth. Apparently that has to do with the humidity in them being just so when they're the right age and all.

And this poutine comes in two sizes. Huge and goddamn ridiculous. Of course, the menu just says regular and large, and being the creatures we are, we both ordered large. Now, that means what we both got were dinner plate sized pasta bowls piled up about six inches high with fries, curds, poutine sauce and various meats. Behr had the T-Rex, apparently so named for the carnivorous nature of the toppings. Ground beef, bacon and pepperoni. I had the Three Amigos, which had three kinds of sausages on it. Both were damn fine, but the sausages made mine more than salty enough. We're going back on Thursday for another swing at it. Yeah, it was that good.

I'm so glad I'm here. I don't think I could live here, at least not yet. But being here now is an experience I won't ever forget.

This place is very different than I was expecting. I don't entirely know what I was expecting, but I am surprised by what we got here. But more on that in a moment, let's start this off chronologically.

My behr and I were saps at the airport. We're apart eight hours a day every frikkin' day, but to get on different flights and such seemed a lot harder. We made goo-goo eyes at each other over a couple of slices of pizza and then I got on my plane and he got on his, and hurtling into the low atmosphere we went.

Foxes are not avian creatures. I don't mind the flying per se, but the quarters didn't agree with me. Tiny little stupid seats with lumbar support in exactly the wrong places, and in neither of my seats did I have a proper table. The first time because I was directly behind the first class row, so there were two seats in front of our row of three, and the second time because I was seated on the emergency exit aisle and there was no seat in front of me. Of course, that meant I could stretch my legs out and relax, which was a good thing. So all in all, I think I'll try to get one of the window seats in row 17 next time I'm on an A310. Which will be Saturday.

The taxi ride from the airport to the hotel was interesting too. My driver was a friendly sort who spoke just enough. He learned the skill of not over-talking your passengers apparently. I don't mind a bit of conversation, but I don't like the taxi drivers who just won't shut their gobs the whole trip.

This hotel? Holy shit nice. We have a kitchen! Not just like a little kitchenette with a microwave and a toaster, but a by god real kitchen. Stove, oven, fridge, dishwasher, pots, pans, all of that. And the bed is so nice. Firm but comfy, with these soft sheets that I just want to wrap around myself and wear all day long. When it was bedtime, I was out like a light.

Twelve hours later ( I must have been really shagged out from the flight ) I awoke. I spent a LONG time in the shower and shaving and such. It's really nice to be able to shower for 45 minutes and not run out of hot water. And the bathtub here is nice and wide and has armrests in it, so I could have a nice relaxing sit down and let the water cascade over me. Cool stuff. But I still had black circles under my eyes that made me look like I'd gone three rounds with Chuck Liddell.

Who am I kidding. I couldn't go three seconds with the Iceman.

I set out to see what I could see, and to pick up a few necessary supplies. I hoofed it to the nearest ( I think...) Metro station and picked us up a couple of STM passes for the week so we can travel around. Some pit stick too, 'cause we didn't bring any. Stupid airline rules about transporting personal hygiene products just because someone MIGHT make a chemical explosive in a deodorant tube... And then I went up and down St. Catherine a fair ways. That's when it really hit me just how different a city we're in.

St. Catherine seems to be the shopping nexus of the city. There's probably malls and stuff out there, but certainly not downtown. The sidewalks are THICK with people too. Tourists, people going to work, panhandlers, a really wide swath of humanity. High end fashion places are butted up against little hole in the wall bars, next to a HUGE HMV, and down the block from a strip bar with bigger neon signs that almost anything else on the block. I could probably spend the rest of the week just on St. Catherine alone, but I won't.

Tonight I'm going to take my behr to Schwartz's deli and we're going to get some world famous smoked meat sammiches. Maybe poutine too. Tomorrow, I plan on heading to the cathedrals and starting to photograph them. I'll post pics when I have them.

The month of April is dead, and I piss on its ashes. It was the biggest concentration of suck I think many of us have ever endured.

Now May is off to a good start. I'm off to Montreal. Gonna spend a week out there with my honey. More updates as the situation warrants.

From James, we have

1: You have a pretty aware and reasonable social circle. How much prejudice, unconscious or otherwise do you still encounter within that group?

None really. I've never had a problem with any of the folks running in any of my social spheres.

2: You don't typically come across as gay or bi, mostly by not fitting the stereotypes. What differs in the "before and after" interactions when people learn about your orientation(s)?

Mostly people have been surprised to learn that I bat for both teams, but it's usually a couple of questions, the most common ones being "Really?" and "No, really now?" but after that first few moments it doesn't seem to usually matter.

3: Why pie?

I don't know. I don't know why foxes love pie. But we do. Lots!

4: How much is owning instead of renting affecting your (collective you, if you like) decisions?

The biggest thing I've noticed is that I'm much more aware of the bills now. They are bigger of course, but I really find that I want to budget now, to make sure nothing goes wrong. It's also allowing us the freedom to make holes in walls and to make noises at all hours, and generally made us much more free men.

5: What do you want to do with your life?

I wanna rock.