Three Shades of Awesome

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So this is the audio recording I made of me speaking at Church today. I was asked to speak on how Jesus, “Wasn’t the saviour you’d thought he’d be,” essentially. Or at least that’s what I chose to speak on, I can’t remember exactly what Tim asked, but that was the gist of it.

It was kinda stressful but a lot of fun, I haven’t spoken/preached/whatever in a long time, so that aspect was fun. But I don’t like talking about stuff that’s quite so close to home… vulnerability despite what you may read in my blog is still a very difficult thing for me to do in a Church setting, (after you stop being able to count the burn scars you get a lil nervous) so yah. You can’t hear much of the clapping or laughing but I got a good couple of chuckles and the clapping at the end was a lot louder than appears on the recording. I used my iPhone’s mic looped into the neck of my shirt to catch the audio which worked pretty well.

So I’m NEARLY done my portfolio for RRC! I just have to make up a resume which is kinda weird, and I have to do a brief research paper on graphic design… though a one page research paper sounds more like some sort of token assignment to make sure that you can say stuff that makes sense, and less about actually learning much.  I mean even at my most concise you’re not gonna get much out of a page, that’s basically enough for an introduction, a conclusion and one source.

Anyway, today I did my monogram.  It’s basically the initials I’ve been using all my life, with some funky headphone sorta stuff happening out the bottom.  It’s pretty slick… the 7 dots may be the result of an ink blotch… but we’ll keep that between me and the internet.  I’m just waiting for it to dry (done in ink) then I’m gonna take a pencil to it and get rid of my pencil lines (What you think I’m gonna risk a mistake when I only have four sheets of the paper I need to use!?  It’s bad enough I nearly finished one only to have my pinky smear some ink and have to start all over!)

That and I also got done my interior perspective drawing.  Probably the piece I’m the least proud of… partly because I didn’t pick that interesting of a subject, I decided to draw the kiosk I work in, but I don’t know, my heart wasn’t really in this one, it probably looks better than I’m giving credit, but I kind of feel like they’re gonna look at my crazy big one, and then look at the one I did tonight and say, “One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong.”  But to be honest it’s getting down to the line and I just wanna make sure I am DONE everything.  Besides they’ll be able to see a bunch of my digital stuff which is what I’m really good at, and shows the skill that I have.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say about that!

So, few things, I’m working on a photo montage/video for a funeral happening on Tuesday. It’s for a friend of my sister’s who died suddenly, it’s a really weird feeling since while I did know the person, we were never close, so I’m trying to pick out a song, and I’m like would she like this? I don’t know if she’d like it. I remember when I was a super emo teenager thinking about my funeral and it’s weird to think of people who don’t know me that well being involved in the last major memorial of my life? It’s weird to be that in someone else’s life? At the same time I might prefer that than to have the people who care about me doing it, given the fact that I think in a lot of ways the last thing my sister wants to do is help with this because it reminds her and that hurts. It’s a very unique experience.

Worst of all I’m left wanting to ask people what they think would be better, the photo theme in iMovie which makes it look really slick but perhaps a bit over produced, or just straight cuts between photos with a bit of Ken Burns effect on each? Should I have a cross dissolve? I think my mom who voluntold me in the first place would rather have the theme since it looks like somebody either spent a lot of time on it, or something. Ironically the most amount of time I did spend on it involved retouching the original photos her parents gave me and scanning them.

Worst of all, I’m worry about things like photo quality, when I should be worrying about which people to have in the photos, but at the same time I know like, five people in all the photos that I see. It’s really a weird experience. I’m just downloading a few songs right now to try out with the photos, I’m not sure what to do… we’ll see. Tomorrow the sister is coming over to kind of give her impression of things, and I’m sure she’ll wanna change a bunch of things… either that or say she can’t deal with it… more than anything I kinda hope she wants to change a bunch of things since that’ll at least mean that someone who really knew her was involved in it. I guess that’s the thing, in a lot of ways I don’t feel like I should be doing this… not that I don’t want to, but I feel like this person’s life is something that I have no right to try and represent.

Perhaps I’m over thinking things.

In other, more me related news (after all, that’s why you all read my blog anyway!) The “Being Over Dan” continues, I keep unpacking why we didn’t work out, I’m progressively coming up for more reasons why it’s his fault, and not mine… which is really good. There’s something about knowing the other person was just dumb and defective and not that there was something you could have done. Though again the more I think about it the more I’m OK with just plain being single, the more being unwanted isn’t a big deal. Don’t get me wrong I’m not about to phone him and be like, hey tell me about whatever guy you’re thinking about dating… both because well it’s the last thing I wanna hear, not to mention I don’t need to watch a train wreck involving him and someone else. (After all, fact is if someone can’t make a romantic relationship work with someone as open as me then they’re pretty screwed when it comes to dealing with someone who might not even know what they want.)

Lately the thinking has come down to centre on the character traits of being either competitive or cooperative. I’ve realized that I’m a cooperative person, all the relationships that really work out well in my life involve me working hand in hand with other people, even if that’s often on my own. I work great with the pastors at Church because they’re never trying to one up me, they have their thing, I have mine and what I do at the Church complements what they do, it wouldn’t be defined as co-dependent or even symbiotic, but it just is. I get my place, and that’s fine.

I’ve realized the more I admit who Dan really is, that he’s a competitive person. For Dan to really succeed he needs to be besting someone else, at work he argues with people to get his way, he has his agenda he’s working on, he wants raises, he wants this and that and other stuff. He’s always working toward some sort of goal, and it’s kind of Dan verses the world. That’s not to say he can’t cooperate with anyone, it’s also not to suggest that somehow I can never compete with other people.

When you look at it though, it actually makes a fair bit of sense, some people just work well working toward community goals and what not, others work better working for their own aims. I think this is also one reason I but heads with my boss a lot. She’s the same way, she’ll clime the company ladder come hell or high water, she’s got her sales goals and she’s gonna achieve them regardless of how much blood sweat and tears it takes. I on the other hand, look at how sales have been going and say hmm will I hit my quota or not? This month no? Yah I guess I won’t push it too much then. I’m not the best person to give a quota too, if it doesn’t seem attainable I just don’t really care? I guess part of that is that I don’t really feel successful if I beat out other people for things, if anything I feel really bad if I win something and someone else doesn’t.

One of the reasons I sell a lot is that most people come to the store already knowing they want a cell phone, all I have to do is help them decide on the best one to fit them, to be honest in a lot of ways I’m more of a personal shopper than a sales person. I sell a lot of smart phones because I think that having the best on the market really will help people’s lives and most people can afford a smartphone. I don’t sell a lot of cheap crap phones because I know people won’t be happy with them, and to be honest in a lot of cases I’d rather you be mad at someone other than me if you decided on an LG pop.

Thinking in these terms I realize that if I run into a cute guy who happens to be competitive I’m often inclined to want his affection, cause there’s nothing like that feeling of the hot go getter being interested in you. But at the same time I’ve realized most of my relationships with those sort of people fall apart. I mean, all the guys I’ve ever liked that were like that, it turned out bad. I’m not sure if Josh was competitive of cooperative, I know Logan and Jacob are, which is probably the reason why we stayed friends after all that stuff.

Yah, I think that’s actually the biggest reason Dan and I didn’t work out. I still remember when he told me he felt I was smarter than him and that bothered him. The idea that I would date someone who was smarter than me doesn’t bother me at all, if anything I’d feel like I accomplished something. But I think in a lot of ways Dan needs to feel like he’s above the person he’s dating, that he’s the bread winner, the one who can kick ass and take names, and he comes home to someone who’s submissive and couldn’t be scary if they tried. Probably also one of the reasons me having intimate knowledge of his life was uncomfortable. I think it probably also bothered him that I wasn’t the least bit competitive with him, if anything I always just wanted to make him happy. I remember the last conversation we had, he talked about me and I realized he wasn’t really talking about me, because the way he was saying I’d act showed he had no clue who I was. I guess at the same time though, given that he would open up to me I thought he was more cooperative than he was. It’s strange. But either way, helps me close the door on it.

I shouldn’t have my bank’s website book marked.  I just shouldn’t.  I only look at it when I don’t have enough money in there.  Of course for me, well for me enough means I don’t have like four months rent piled up.  I’ve never understood how some people can live pay cheque to pay cheque.  To me that is like going into a fight without knowing what the other guy’s secret weakness is, I mean you’re just not sure who’s gonna win!  In this instance, apparently everyone but me is winning the fight, at least that’s what my little green e-banking page says.

And what’s with calling everything on the net e-something or other?  Why can’t we just call it, Your Bank’s Site?  I mean, really do people need to have an e- in front of anything to let them know it involves doing it on the internet?  E- is supposed to denote the word electronic, in this case electronic banking, but isn’t that what using an ATM is?  Why don’t we call it E-ATM Banking?  Well cause that’s just not catchy I guess.

Maybe I should become an E-Superhero, then I could fight crime in my underwear!  Instead of tracking down an evil-doer’s hide out, I could find their Facebook page, and instead of disguising myself as the cleaning staff (evil-doers are notoriously untidy and since most of them are swimming in cash they tend to hire out.) I could just make a fake profile with an attractive person’s picture to get them to lower their privacy settings!  Though, that probably would involve a lot less fighting, and hostage saving, and… well actual world saving.  I guess I’ll just have to stay a normal Superhero.

Today I really wouldn’t mind not being super though, or at least not being a hero.  Like I said the bad guys are always swimming in cash!  I guess when you’re evil it’s easy to be highly motivated?  To be honest I think it’s hard even for normal people not to become evil when they have too much money.  I mean look at North Americans?  I heard a stat that the world would need five earths to sustain the population if the whole world lived like Americans.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like all my stuff, and I may be a hero but I don’t plan on living in poverty.  But it just seems like the more money people have, the more prone they are to be evil with it.

I guess looking at my bank account the only place I could be evil in would be a third world country.  Currently I can barely eat out with friends.  It’s expensive living on your own, working a crappy job, and… buying crime fighting gear.  I have to try really hard not to build up credit card debt, cause I mean, if I can’t buy that new grappling hook off Ebay this week, (Ebay is a great place to get crime fighting gear on a budget!) that might cost someone their life!  And you can’t pay that back at a fixed interest rate!

Right now I’m in a bit of a bind, I kind of hate my job.  Contrary to what comic books might teach you, most Superheroes aren’t Bruce Waynes, Tony Starks, or Oliver Queens… man there’s a lot of rich play boys in comics.  Actually it tends to be, like I said, the villains who have all the cash.  Sometimes it feels like you’re bailing out the ocean with a bucket, and it’s not like some cosmic bucket, magic bucket, even e-bucket, it’s, it’s just a bucket.

That’s, well that’s how I feel right now.  All I’ve got is a bucket, my bank balance is low enough that I’m not buying that grappling hook, actually I’m grappling with the notion of selling my Wii. But, I’ll be OK.  I mean, I’m always OK, so, something’ll work out, and I’ll be fine.  At least, I hope I’ll be fine.

You know what the worst part of money troubles is?  When you look at the bank across the street and think, how many times have I saved you from being robbed?  Once?  Twice, oh right wait, five times.  That’s right that single bank, I’ve saved from being robbed five times!  Actually one of those was the result of Facebook fraud with an attractive picture, did I mention villains love Facebook?  But you look at the bank, and you think, wow they’ve got all that money, couldn’t, well couldn’t they just give some of it to me?  I mean I protect them, I keep them safe from evil.  The problem is, you can’t ask when you’re a hero, you just can’t ask.  And I mean, if you did, they probably wouldn’t, you know it’s hard to tell investors, he didn’t force us, all he did was ask politely, so we just gave him some cash. Of course if you say, hey I’m not gonna protect you from those bad guys, well then it’s a protection racket, and congrats you’re not a hero anymore, you’re a mobster.  Nobody wants to be a mobster, though they do get to wear some really nice suits.

So, I click the little red button, and I close the window.  I grab a glass of water, and I lay down in bed, I wish my bank account was impenetrable.

So, good blog readers, and blog readets, I have something, something wonderful to share with you. I, David, first openly gay student of Providence College, biggest scandal of Transcona Alliance Church, son of Dennis and Julie, brother of Serena, fighter of dragons and lesbians, most faithful of Mac users, best sales rep Rogers has ever seen, have added a new achievement to my list of accomplishments, a new trophy to the case if you will.

I am now, over Dan. I have spent the last two hours on the phone, on Skype, on Facebook, just… ON, celebrating! I’d go out and get drunk if I was the sort that went out and got drunk! But that’s right, I’m over Dan. I gave in to my curiosity and I phoned him tonight, and we talked, it was for the most part a very amicable chat, we laughed a lot, it was nice, but then there was one point we talked about dating, and he said something about how we’d be if we dated, and I just… it hit me, he was right when he said he wasn’t smart enough to date me, he has no idea who I am!

It’s just, wow. It really hit me, for all the talking that he did about himself, and all the ways I know him like inside and out, and in ways that nobody else probably ever will, in all that time he never bothered to even realize who I am. Fact is I’ll still say, I would have been perfect for him! I’d have made him happier than anyone else ever will be able to, and he lost out on that because of his own stubbornness and need to be the one who comes up with the idea.

As we talked there were a bunch of times where I was like, oh so you realized I was right? Not that I said it, but like… it was there, I bit my tongue so much. It’s like every time we talk, more and more he’s admitting I was right without ever saying it, and it’s soooo funny! Heck who knows maybe in three months I’ll he’ll try and ask me out and I’ll be like, nope sorry you had your chance bucko! He’s cute, he’s smart, but he’s stubborn and he always needs to be right, but he’s just not quite self aware enough to be right more than me. He probably coulda gotten there if he’d stuck it out with me, but nope!

It’s fun, like, I just, I feel like a weight’s been lifted off my shoulders, I’m finally free! For the last seven months he’s had the power to make me giddy or to make me cry and that’s gone! And he’ll probably continue on having superficial relationship after superficial relationship, always pushing people away, never letting anyone get as close as I got, and it’ll always be cheap and safe! But that’s fine, I’m basking in meaning and authenticity and it’s brilliant! I may be alone but it’s still brilliant!

Ugh, I just… I feel like, like more than ever, I’m future me, I thought I loved future Dan, but what I really love is future me!

I’ve been doing great lately. For anyone who follows my Facebook status you’ll know I broke two toes this week… and may have dropped my laptop bag right on my foot just after talking to the triage nurse who stifled her laughter long enough for force me into a wheel chair. (That was monday)

The last while broken toes aside, I’ve been doing amazingly well. Even this last Thursday I had dinner with Brynna and she noticed how much happier and upbeat I’d been. I’ve actually been happy with myself, I’ve been glad to be me. I still have a lot of my old habits, but I need to rely on my characteristic false bravado a lot less, I smile a lot more and when I smile it’s an honest smile.

That’s not to say everything’s always great I’m still always on the edge of quitting my job every time I get in trouble for stupid things. Though to be honest aside from one small thing, even that’s been good given the fact that I had to take time off to let the foot heal.

Tonight though, something happened that I’m still sorting through, part of it feels almost like some sort of dark cosmic test. It’s like ever since I’ve taken on this new perspective things keep happening that seem like opportunities to just fall back into depression. I confess I’m still struggling with whether or not I responded in the right way or what.

I got a txt message from Dan today saying, “I know I’m probably the last person you want to hear from right now, but I just wanted to let you know I told my mom.” My initial response was, you’re right now screw off! Then my next response was to want to pick up the phone, help him unpack everything that he was feeling, and fall back into this awful OC style cycle we get ourselves into.

I am actually really proud of myself, because my reply was pretty short, I asked how she took it, apparently she’d already known (like I told him she did) and then I said, “Good, part of me wants to talk more, but I think I need to take care of myself more. You can’t love me, and I can’ be your friend, so I’ll just wish you good luck ”

And, well it kinda ripped my heart out to say that. I know for some people the heartless uncaring reaction is the default one. That isn’t me though. My first reaction is to help, I always wanna help. I always want to be the one that everyone can count on. The problem is being that for Dan just ends up draining me.

I mean on the one hand Dan leaves me feeling alive when we’re on good terms. I used to tell him that when we talked, I honestly felt like everything would work out. There’s just something about him that makes me feel fixed. Like I’m put back together and I’ll never fall apart again. But those are the good times.

The problem is that, whenever it gets to the point where I feel like I can finally let my guard down, he ends up doing something to push me away, half the time he does it out of a desire to “not lead you on,” but then afterward he’ll always say sorry and that’s not really what he meant, and it just goes on and on. So like most of the time I feel great, but then there’s always that distance, as soon as I feel like it’s finally safe to stop over thinking things he goes off.

It’s only been three weeks since we stopped talking. I flipped out on him for txting a different David he’d become friends with, and who I suspected he had romantic feelings for. My guess is that if he’s wanting to talk to me, either he’s found out that that relationship doesn’t give him what he needs, or it’s somehow fallen apart. Or it could be that the other guy is as distant as he is and… anyway all sorts of theories.

I talked to Logan about it, and I wrote Josh a message on Facebook. Josh gave me the answer I really didn’t want to hear, which is the traditional sacrificial Christian answer of, “Maybe God put him in your life for you to help him?” To which all I can say is, if so I think I need to do a bad job of that, because doing a good job of it the last few months certainly didn’t pay off.

Logan on the other hand was pretty good about just reminding me that the last few weeks I’ve been really good, and it does make sense to not risk giving that up for yet another round of Dan confusion.

See, the thing is, on some levels I still love Dan, that’ll probably stay that way for a while. But at the same time, Dan made the old David feel good. Dan was a glimmer of hope that I might not be alone for forever, that I might have found someone who likes me, wants me, all that stuff. But Dan was also my rude awakening that even if I find someone who seems like that, they’re going to give me really stupid excuses for why they can’t love me. I’m going to hear that regardless of what I try somehow love will never work out for me.

But I’ve moved past that, I’ve realized that the quality of my life isn’t measured by the number of dates I go on, the years that I’m married, or whether or not I can say, “My husband and I,” in 30% of my sentences.

I’ve finally realized that I’m a wonderfully, brilliantly, clever individual, with a lot to share not just with a romantic partner but with the world around me, and if I’m ever going to settle down with someone, they’re going to be someone who has the balls to say, “David I think you’re incredible and every day without you is miserable for me!” and I’m finally at the point where I don’t want to settle for less, and I’m not going to.

I’d love to be there for Dan, I’d love to help him through the coming out experience, I’d love to help him process things, I’d love to hold his hand through all of it, but I can’t be his secret gay blog anymore, I’m not willing to be anyone’s naughty secret they keep hidden, because the fact is I’m so much more than that. But unless he’s dramatically changed in the last three months, he’s not there yet, and I imagine he’ll settle for someone much less than me before he ever gets to that point.

It’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I’m going to take care of myself… why does that have to be so difficult?

Every good superhero has a secret hide out. Well, OK, maybe not every good superhero, but most of them. I mean, Spiderman never really had one, but the X-Men did, Batman, Superman had his fortress of solitude, it’s a pretty common theme. Granted all those are fictional superheroes, but you know, the idea spills over into the real world.

Most of us can’t afford a Bat-cave though, it’s funny, I’ve known some heroes who get so caught up in setting up their secret hide out they stop paying attention to crime and what not. Personally I’ve always felt that a secret base should be a place of simplicity, a refuge from the broader fight, a safe place to work up strategies and sometimes rest.

My secret hide away is actually, well it’s a little underwhelming. It’s, well it’s the bedroom of my apartment. See, I actually live in the living room, it’s got a door, and I’m the only one who lives here, and it’s a bigger room so it makes sense. The lack of a closet in the room is the only real down side. But that way it frees up room in the actual bedroom to work as a secret lab, hide away, fortress of solitude, whatever I wanna make of it.

I mean, my crime fighting abilities don’t need some crazy super computer, my three year old MacBook does quite the job, you’d be surprised what you can work out of old hardware. I actually converted my old laptop from college into a sort of digital VCR, it’s really cool and works great. But yah, I mean, I hide my crime fighting weapons behind this fake wall in the closet, and my costume.

I, I hung a few pictures, you know, of me, friends, the league… not that they’re together anymore but you know, nostalgia. I’ve got a cool blue spinny light that alerts me of danger, a red one that lets me know of intruders, and some metal blast doors that’ll fall down if it’s being attacked from the outside. Well, I haven’t had to use the blast doors yet, but you know.

It’s funny, I know a lot of super villains have tried to find my hide out, my therapist even asked about it, said something about how I was always, escaping, and, where exactly do you go when you escape? Phhh like I’m gonna reveal that sort of thing to him! Nice try Doc… Doc Evil-Guy! That’s, that’s what we named him, his actual name was Hunt, Dr. Hunt, but we figured Doctor Evil-Guy was a much better name for him.

But nobody’s ever figured out that, it’s just a room in an old apartment building, that one room, guards my most pressure secrets, the information about all my vulnerabilities. But they’d never look for it, nobody ever looks and sees what’s right there in the open.

So, I’m in a super good place today… actually I have been for the last while. Granted my apartment’s a lil messy (should clean that.)

so I got my Wii finally! I stopped in EB Games/Gamestop at St. V, and the manager was like “Yah we’ve got three coming in today, but we haven’t gotten them in yet.” She said she couldn’t call me once one comes in even though I’d just be down the hall (She’d better not suddenly need me to hold an iPhone for her! Actually looked like she had some POS Windows Mobile thing…) but then said I should just watch for Purolator to deliver it. So then I walked out and saw the mall’s Purolator guy right in the next shop, stopped chatted with him and told him to hurry up and deliver the Wii!

So I worked the longest shift ever, had nachos with my Pastor in the Village, and then came home and set up my Wii! So much fun! I’ve got two games that should entertain me for a good long while, not to mention I’ve been looking at a few more games I can get for it, over all I feel like I’m 12 again and it’s fun!

Other than that, I’m in a very good place, both emotionally, spiritually, and… yah just about everything. Financially I’m not quite where I’d like to be… especially since I just dropped 300 on a Wii and two games! But, I shall save, I shall get my tax return, I shall save… actually the Wii might be bad for my savings since there are a lot of games that I wanna pick up… mainly collections of classics. IE I wanna get the Sonic Collection that came out for the Game Cube, as well as the Mega Man X collection that came out for the Cube.

But for now, I’m playing through New Super Mario, and I’m loving it! Can’t wait to try playing with a friend since there’s a mutli player mode!

Anyway… other than that… I’ve been in a really good place lately. Spiritually, emotionally, basically the closest thing I’ve got to something bad in my life is a hole in my pocket book that’s been left by buying my Wii, and a weird skin condition that developed after moving into my apt in October, that is getting looked at by a dermatologist this Friday. Other than that, I’m peachy!