Dirty Girls

"I like a girl with a dirty mouth

Someone that I can believe"

["Dirty Girl", Eels]

I was chatting with a few friends a while back and the conversation was around gender.  A woman sitting next to me joked something offhandedly like 'I'm beginning to think I'm closer to the middle of the spectrum'.  My gut reaction was to think "that's always how I've read you", but I caught myself and didn't say it out loud.  I hesitated to pass such comment because people, even the most enlightened I've found, are still mired in what gender does or doesn't mean, how it differs from sexuality, and how to interpret the relationship between the two.  While I thought what I thought in a very positive, affirmative way, I wouldn't have wanted her to think that because she - in my mind, at least, but I'm certainly not speaking for everyone - reads as less feminine or as more masculine than most women that it somehow implies less attractive.  In my mind, she was no less attractive for it.  At the same time, mind you, attraction is a subjective not objective thing.  And so I'm sure there are those for whom such a quality would, I suppose, make her less attractive for them.

In any case, I came away from that experience with a lingering thought at the time, not about her but as little piece of introspection about myself:  in my mind... she was no less attractive for being more masculine than many women.

A while ago, I posted a video clip of Robert Webb talking about toxic masculinity on Facebook, and Liza-Ann in response posted a comment about how she "[has] spent too much time apologizing for or hiding what society calls my masculine traits... ...These things i thought made me less of a girl."  And again, to me, they don't make her "less".  They are, in fact, some of the things I love the most about her.

In the last number of weeks, I have on several occasions, gone to do something around the house that some might term "manly things" (I don't recall specifics - minor carpentry?  Lugging heavy shit around?  Whatever.), only to find them already done, and thought, very matter-of-fact, "oh, LA must have done it.  Alright."  And I'm really glad to have a partner with whom this is a common occurrence.

And that's when it gelled for me.  I've always looked for common elements among past girlfriends.  There's a wide variety of differences, physical and intellectual, but few common characteristics I could ever put my finger on.  But this is one:  I don't remember any of them ever being a girly-girl.  Physically feminine?  Yes, absolutely.  But mentally....  I can't recall ever being enamored with anyone who'd have been too upset over a chipped nail or who'd have tuned a TV channel to a beauty pageant.  I've always preferred minimal-to-no makeup and simpler hairstyles.  Girlfriends were always women who could "get ready to go out" almost as quickly as I could.  It's not that I don't like girly-girls to look at, sure.  But as partners?  I've always sought strong, outspoken, aggressive women because I was raised in a household of strong women.  I've never been comfortable with someone who'd play the damsel.

Now I'd love to sit back and suggest that my personal attractions have always been about personality-first, but that'd be a bold lie.  I'm very much hetero in that regard.  I know what parts catch my eye.  I know what first gets my attention.  I joke that I am hopelessly straight because male bodies just don't inspire me sexually at all (nope, not even Idris Elba).

But I know what catches my eye, physically, and I know what then holds my attention, mentally.

And when you think of it in those terms:  not just a single-dimensional axis of physicality but also another axis for gender-identity or gender-expression... even without considering agender, non-binary, or gender-fluid... you've already arrived at an ocean of possibilities that's difficult to quantify.

What's that?  The complexity of human sexual and romantic relations can't be easily distilled into a small handful of discrete categories?!  Clutches pearls.  Gasps dramatically.

And for the record:  yes, I have no problem admitting that the realization I've always been attracted to perhaps "more masculine women" caused me to very briefly ponder what that said about my sexuality, right up until the 4 seconds later when I laughed, remembering that I really don't care.

[Also for the record, I didn't spot the dirty joke until long after I wrote it, so I left it.]

The Company of Women

"I want to say a little something that's long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends

I want to offer my love and respect to the end"

["Sure Shot", Beastie Boys]

About a week ago, I was at my sister's house when one of her dogs behaved a little strangely toward me.  She commented something like "she's not usually like that around men", to which I joked something to the effect of "perhaps I've cleansed myself of enough toxic masculinity and moved toward the centre of the spectrum that she [the dog] no longer sees me as a man."

A few nights ago someone referred to me as "woke".  I said I prefer "waking".  I don't think of it in past tense, but as an ongoing process every day.  Years ago it was "open-minded" versus "I have an opening mind."  The more I learn, the more I realize there is so much more to learn.  When you start paying attention, a whole world opens up, and you realize just how very little you really know.  And that's a good thing.  So many people.  So many stories.

A little over a month ago someone referred to me as an 'activist'.  That's not a word I'm prepared to wear yet.  Let me feel like I've actually done something real, accomplished something real, before I'll consider really wearing that word.  Sure, some friends and I have started doing a few things here and there in furtherance of our particular feminist beliefs, but I feel like we've accomplished so little compared with what needs to happen that it'd be like calling someone an engineer just because they read the covers of a few math books at a Chapters.  It's a long road.  We're just beginning.

I was at a breast cancer fundraiser event recently, and I was one of only about five men in the room.  The comedian MC joked on taking the stage that those few men were "the ones who lost the bet".  I was not.  And when we arrived to find the room so lopsided - about 5 to 195 - Liza-Ann briefly started to apologize that while she knew (and had told me) it'd likely be a lot more women than men, but that she didn't expect it to be quite so slanted.  No apology was necessary.  Fact is, it was not the first time in 2018 I'd found myself in such conditions, being at an event where I was one of only a small sprinkling of men far outnumbered by women.

[And let me briefly interject that when I say "men" and "women" here, I do so of habit and convenience, but I know I'm really saying "male-presenting" and "female-presenting", because really, I have no idea how many trans, non-binary, fluid, agender, or gender-queer people were there.  Who does?]

Now on this particular occasion, it wasn't my idea to be there - Liza-Ann needed a "+1" for the event and I'd agreed - but I did have a good time.  I enjoyed myself with the exception of some awkward sexist comments by the comedian/MC aimed at embarrassing a young woman about her choice of dress.  It was in that old school "just a joke, sure"/"all in good fun" kind of way that's actually awkward, hurtful, and embarrassing, and I look forward to the day when we're all past that bullshit.  And yeah, I'm not that keen on Xmas carols.  But the meal was pretty nice, the speeches were great, and it was a fun overall atmosphere.  I didn't know what to expect going into it, but if it was the sort of thing that had interested me, the idea of it being mostly women would certainly not have kept me away.  I may go again next year.

When I say the notion of such a gender-unbalanced audience doesn't frighten me, I acknowledge it is male privilege talking:  a man can walk alone into a room of two hundred women and feel as though there is zero threat to his physical safety.  Intellectually, I realize Rhonda Rousey would clean my clock, but on an instinctive level, I don't know that I've ever met a woman and thought "I bet she could kick my ass", because my brain was not socialized to ever make such assessments, unlike the way it does in a whole range of scenarios involving men, thanks to a childhood of street-fights.  This, despite the fact that the only time I was ever struck with a weapon (a baseball bat), it was actually a girl swinging it.  So deep are the gender-based lessons of our childhood that it simply didn't register.

On the other two occasions in 2018 where I was at a vastly female-dominated event, it was because I chose to attend an event where feminist films were being presented on subjects about which I was curious, and I knew going in that I would be in a room predominantly full of women.  The idea didn't bother me.

On one of those occasions, we were watching a film (Play Your Gender), and there was a comment in the film that caused a collective snicker among all the women in the room.  I think I may have laughed too, I'm not sure.  I wish I could remember the exact comment, but I cannot.  I remember the context and the 'feel' of it though:  it was about women having to manage men's attraction to them, because men who struggle with being attracted to women they can't have tend to project that struggle onto the women (through inappropriate flirting, etc.) and make it the woman's problem.  The comment was comedically-timed and matter-of-fact to the ladies but very insightful to me.  I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the idea since, and trying to take a self-assessment of how uncomfortable I may or may not make women around me to whom I find myself attracted through my speech and actions.

I could go on about that, but as insightful as it was, those are not the points I came to make today nor was it the reason I sat down and started typing.  (A post for another day, perhaps?)  The reason for this post came later, when on reflecting on the context in which I'd heard the comment, the nature of the film, the room full of women who snickered (rightly so) at the remark...

There is a toxic-masculine notion that men aren't supposed to be comfortable in or enjoy the company of women.  I do.  I suspect I always have.  I grew up with enormous respect for my mother, and she, my sisters, and my "second mom" Pat Cronin did a good job of instilling a respect for women in me.  (Thanks, ladies.)  For the men that don't or won't or can't ever feel comfortable surrounded by women, I feel sorry for you.  I truly do.  You're missing out.

But it's not nearly the same as women negotiating the world of men.  Women negotiate the world of men with a level of apprehension and fear that is impossible to miss if you open your eyes and watch.  In the corporate world, for instance, you can hear them pose their best suggestions as questions and even allow these ideas to be stolen by the men around them, an overlooked sacrifice made to keep things moving forward.  You can watch them stroke the egos of their male coworkers - or even subordinates - in an effort to ingratiate themselves and gain agency.

A while back I was in a meeting with three female superiors, yet felt as though my ego was being stroked.  (As if my ego needs stroking?!)  And it was shortly after that, thinking back to that comment in the movie, I realized:

There are conversations to which I will never be a party.

Because if women's apprehension and fear is commensurate with the number of men in the room, I can never be in a room where the needle goes to zero.  Any room I'm in will always have at least one man in it. 

Can I never witness a group of women talking in a truly fearless, authentic way?  Or will the closest I ever get be the rare, pointed comment like that one, a sort of 'overheard secret'?

Because if so, if that's as close as I'll ever come... frankly, it's a little bit heart-breaking.

Scar Tissue

"Such is the way of the world

You can never know

Just where to put all your faith

And how will it grow?

Gonna rise up

Burning black holes in dark memories

Gonna rise up

Turning mistakes into gold"

["Rise", Eddie Vedder]

When I was younger, I never really understood trauma, because I never had a great understanding of where the human will begins and ends.  I have always been a fairly strong-willed individual with a great deal of self control.  I can count on one hand the number of times I can recall really losing my temper, for instance.  My words are carefully measured, near always.  When movies depict people screaming and panicking during a bank robbery while a gun is being waved in their face with shouts of "shut up", I can't relate.  It always strikes me as stupid.  They're waving a gun in your face.  Shut up.  Idiot.

I have often struggled with the idea of addiction as a disease, because a part of me still believes that I could divest myself of any addiction if I wanted to, through that sheer force of will.  I make careful choices about what I do and don't allow myself to become addicted to, and I frequently exercise a force of will to push back against those things to reassess my ability to do so.  (e.g. I've not played a video game in about seven weeks at this point, because I won't let myself.)

For years I never understood people sticking with shitty relationships, because I had decidedly ended bad relationships when I became dissatisfied with them, despite any fears I had about the loneliness of being single for those extended periods between. 

So I never understood trauma.  Or feeling trapped.  Or being truly addicted.

Then I found myself in a relationship I allowed to persist for much longer than was healthy (for reasons I won't get into here), and understood, at last, that the world is a little more nuanced than these clear lines I used to draw around things.

And as I got older, I also came to realize the limits of my supposedly-indomitable human will.  Sure, I know I should eat healthier and lose weight.  But I don't do those things now do I?  I have faced addictions I couldn't so readily "will away" at the drop of a hat, but struggled with instead.  Is it a matter of "not sufficiently motivated", or is it indeed a case of "couldn't if I tried"?

I certainly can't will myself to be as dexterous as I once was.  Or  as strong.  Or to have the constitution I once did.  I fall asleep watching TV shows.  I walk around rather than jumping up over the half-wall alongside the lawn.  I have had to humbly accept these realities as I've gotten older, as much as it pained me.

In my infatuation with the clean, the clear, the precise, I have always been annoyed that rooms in houses aren't perfectly square, and that floors aren't perfectly level.  I get annoyed with finding typos in things I've read and re-read a dozen times both before and after publishing.

But my mind... My mind was always my last bastion of hope.  Even when I accept that there's dust on that shelf over there, and a hitch in the carpet, and something past due in the fridge, my mind and the idea of that indomitable, precisely-functioning and well-controlled will was always the sort of fall back.  It was the thing that gave me comfort in this messy, messy world: the notion that my mind was clear and clean and would remain so.

Forgetfulness was always a part of the equation, sure, but I was willing to overlook that.  "It's the sign of a busy mind," I would tell myself.

But trauma, I never understood.  Most particularly, I've never understood lasting trauma until recent years, when I began to come face-to-face with some of my own.  It's nothing big, no.  There's nothing major there.  There aren't horrific near-death experiences or stories of witnessing anything equally unsettling.  But there are a thousand little cuts that cause a thousand errant thoughts that surface without fail in each of their specific circumstances.  They are uncontrollable.  They are irresistible.  They just happen. 

They are tiny fragments of a childhood of being bullied that see my hair rise on the back of my neck at the slightest recognition of possible violence.  They are any attempt to enter water deeper than my neck without flotation device, no matter how controlled the scenario.  They see a gut-wrenching fear rise in my mind I can't even describe.  It's not even a thought exactly.  It's not 'oh, I might drown...'.  It's just 'NO!'

I was rear-ended in an intersection a year (?) ago and the car was damaged.  I wasn't frightened at the time.  I suffered no injuries.  Within a few days the car was sorted and we weren't any money out of pocket.  It was just an inconvenience, really.  But now I cringe taking that particular turn in that particular intersection.  And when I do I think to myself 'really?!', because in my mind it doesn't deserve to haunt me, it's too insignificant.

If I'm going to have ghosts in my closet, shouldn't there at least be stricter entry requirements?

Sisyphean Feed

"Addicts of the immediate 

keep us obedient and unaware

Feeding this mutation

this Pavlovian despair"

["Disillusioned", A Perfect Circle]

There is a story in Greek Mythology of a King Sisyphus whose craftiness caused him to be punished by the gods for all eternity by having to roll a tremendous boulder uphill each day, only to have it roll back down just as it reached the peak.

I read an incredibly simple piece of advice a little while back for achieving better overall happiness in your life: don't check the news on waking.  In the modern age of tech, especially for a technophile like me, this "simple" piece of advice has proven anything but.  Try as I may, my desire to be "tuned in" causes me to pick up my phone from my nightstand each morning on waking, and check the news and Facebook before I even get out of bed.

A few days ago I woke to a news story about a certain U of T prof I won't name selling out shows in Seattle.  Today it was an opinion piece saying the Toronto van attack was unrelated to toxic masculinity.  Some days it's about gender-based violence, or trans-rights, or the gender wage gap, or the refusal of a town council to approve something so simple as a rainbow crosswalk.

And when I do, it often starts my day off on the wrong foot.  On the day My Favorite Fuckwit was selling out shows, a close friend shared a news story with me in Email that I didn't even feel prepared to answer, because while his point and the article were (mostly) unrelated to the issue, and innocent enough his bringing it up, when you spend your days and nights being bombarded with these things, well... I've got a hammer and every problem is a nail.

And I'll be the first to admit that the reasons these are what I'm seeing are largely my own.  That I receive these articles, I mean.  That's my fault.  Not the contents of them.

That I get these articles has everything to do with my following certain pages, participating in certain groups, and commenting on or sharing certain kinds of articles and discussions.  Some of it is by necessity; there are areas in which I must continue to educate myself and therefore I must remain "tuned in".  Others are by choice, masochistic as it may be, because they are things I feel passionately about, and areas in which I feel a need to exert my opinion in the hopes of... well, in the hopes of rolling that big boulder uphill, convincing myself that one morning, long from now, I will wake to see it sitting firmly at the top.

That so much of it is disheartening bullshit is because humanity really sucks sometimes, and Humans.  Are.  So.  Slow.  To.  Change.  And I know we don't suck all the time.  And I try to keep a good solid grip on that idea as well.  I've an acquaintance who bombards his wife with images of kittens and other playful animals every day, and I've clicked 'like' on enough of their stuff that it's now a part of my daily Facebook feed as well, and I'm happier for it.  (Because KITTENS!)

There are cultural shifts taking place, and within those cultural shifts, people are traveling at different speeds.  Some of us are doing our best to lead people on this path.  Others are being dragged, kicking and screaming, through the vitriolic contempt of anonymous comment sections into the more enlightened future that awaits.  As frustrating as it is to roll my eyes at the various screens I use in the course of a day and think 'Jeebus, get on the right side of history!', I have to face the reality that some of these old dogs aren't going to be learning new tricks any time soon, if ever in their remaining lifetimes.

And truthfully, "tuning out" is not really an option for me.  I can limit certain things.  I can take breaks.  I can do what I must to manage my "emotional fuel" (or "spoons", or whatever metaphor you prefer).  The genie doesn't go back into the bottle and neither would I want it to.

But the responsibility I have, to myself and to those around me - and I write this today as much a reminder to myself of this as anything else - is to find the patience to help those around me understand what's going on and to help them understand that it is for the betterment of us all.

Because what that friend needed the other day was just a civil conversation about an interesting news article with his buddy, and not the sort of high-strung reaction to which I've become prone of late.

So tomorrow, when I wake, I'll try to take a pause, and catch my breath.

And then I'll meet you at the boulder.

Tomorrow, and every day for the rest of our lives.

"What you win in the immediate battles is... 

is little compared to the effort you put into it, 

but if you see that as a part of this total 
movement to build a new world, 

you know what cathedral you're building
 when you put your stone in."

[Anne Braden]

The Soft Underbelly

"it's all an act you're playin'
it's a role that we put on
and it's a faded coat somebody 
handed down into our hands"

["Let It All Fall", Bung]

I emerged from the basement after ushering the last of my friends out the door and locking it behind them, and, carrying our dirty dishes, stepped into the kitchen to set them on the counter before retiring upstairs to bed.  It was an excellent evening of gaming, kicking off a brand new Dungeons and Dragons campaign I had been preparing for over a year.  I was elated.

There, on the floor of the kitchen, for the umpteenth time, was yet another puddle of water, indicating that once more in what would eventually stretch into a six-week long saga of "the brand new dishwasher leaks" a phone call and a bitter argument would be required tomorrow, on the part of myself or, more likely, Liza-Ann.  I set down the dishes, sighed heavily, mopped it up with a few paper towels, and made my way to bed, my heart sinking with each step.  And in my head, the battle with my conscience began.

I just... 
She's probably asleep.  You going to wake her?
I just...
You fucking pussy.  It's trivial.

Yes, first world problem, I know.  Yes, not a big deal in the scheme of things.  Yes, it's "just a thing, not a person" (I would say, were it not me.)  No injuries.  No serious damage.  Such a small thing.

I just need...
You fucking tool.  It's just a dishwasher.  It's just a puddle.  You're being irrational.
I know it's trivial, that's not the point.  I get that I shouldn't be this upset but...
You shouldn't and you know it.  So don't be.  Go to sleep.  Cope.

But it was just so incredibly disheartening.  Explaining why this particular trivial thing upset me so deeply would be a sort of therapy I'd rather not get into here.  It matters only that it did.  I'm a pretty rational person, but not always.  I can be sensitive, perhaps overly so at times.  I don't deny that.

As if I'll sleep!  I'm not getting to sleep in this mood.  But if I just...
Go to sleep.  Deal with it tomorrow, you stunned little wuss.
Is it so wrong to just feel vulnerable?  Just for a minute?  That's not wrong.
Coward.  You don't wake her up.  Cope and tell her tomorrow.

As I quietly undressed and slipped into bed, I could tell by her breathing that Liza-Ann wasn't fully asleep, but probably in that boundary area where she was just drifting in and out.  Years of sleeping together has taught us both to be able to tell when the other is fully asleep or not.

I just need to feel like it will all be okay.
Of course it will.  You gonna risk waking her just so you can feel better?

Several long minutes of contemplation passed, as I lay there blinking at the ceiling.  I wished I could put it aside and go to sleep.  I knew I likely wouldn't.  I knew that from the moment I saw the puddle and felt the life drain from me that I would likely have a very sleepless night.

If she were upset, I would want her to wake me.  I would want to be able to comfort her.
Sure, because that's what men do.  But men don't wake women looking for comfort.

Then I thought about something Ivan Coyote said that time I saw them.

This one does.

I mustered up the courage and said something like, 'Can I have a hug?'

Sleepily, she rolled over and wrapped her arms around me tightly, and I instantly felt better.

The most important thing here isn't the hug, or the dishwasher, or the lengthy saga.  It's not for what strange reason I might have found it as upsetting as I did, or even that I was upset at all, or that I was fortunate enough to have Liza-Ann to comfort me (though I do very much appreciate it - love you, babe!)  It's that several long minutes part.

After two years of examining, disarming, and dismantling the unwritten rules that our culture long ago instilled in me, it remains a struggle to fight back the coded impulses.  Even having drawn back that curtain, pointed at Mr Wizard, and said "AHA!", even fully recognizing the ridiculous bullshit with which I was indoctrinated and now eagerly part with, it is a fight sometimes to overcome the sort of instincts with which I was programmed.  It's contending with a base impulse of "what kind of man will people think you are if you do this?"

And I'm writing this today because I realized I needed to do with this little monster-in-the-dark the same thing I did years ago in my "journey of self-discovery" of my first online journal:  I needed to show it the light of day.  Back then I took those things about myself that most hurt me, those "secret shames", and put them out there in the world because I knew that was the difference between hiding and fighting.  It was the difference between a quiet, internal, eternal struggle, or a louder, shorter, external one.  It was through a "Let the chips fall where they may" attitude that I came to acceptance of a great many things about myself.

And for a long time, I haven't had to do that, because I haven't been digging deep enough to find one.  The newfound shovel of my deeper dive into "what is masculinity anyway?" has shown me there are still things lurking in the darkness, deeper down.

I don't need an 'attaboy'.  I do not expect, require, or desire sympathy.  Rather, I want to simply share my reflection with others, because I want other men to take a closer look at their programmatic gut reactions and their self-imposed exile from emotional connectivity.  I want them to dig deeper.  You are both the hostage and the hostage-taker in this scenario.  Which role you accept is a choice.

I accept my vulnerability.  I refuse to remain hostage to some shit I was spoon-fed by society as a child.  I will forge my own path forward.

Behold, one and all, my delicate, soft underbelly:  sometimes, for the dumbest, most ridiculous reasons, I have a moment where I just feel emotionally exhausted about some stupid little thing, and I need a hug.  Just to feel better.

Gentlemen, you should give it a try.  It's very liberating.

Let Me Count the Ways

"all I need to know

is however far away

my corner is

at least I know that you are in it"

["Storm your Little", Pathological Lovers]

Sometimes, when I tell Liza-Ann I love her, she responds by asking "Why?" putting me on the spot to come up with a specific reason at that time.  There are a lot of reasons, but the urgent demand to spit one out usually puts me on my heels.

So yesterday I opened up Notepad and started making a list, just rapidly typing things as they came to mind, in no particular order.  Not being put on the spot, it was only in a matter of seconds before I had the first twenty, then twenty five, and even now as I sit down to start this, even more come trickling in and the list keeps growing.

So I decided I should share some.  Partly, it's because I'm stingy with compliments and I don't tell her as often as I should.  Partly, it's because I'm proud of the relationship that we've built and how rewarding and functional it is.  Partly, it's because relationships (this one and others) are things I think about a lot, and I think such reflection has given me at least a little insight into what it takes to make a good relationship, and if sharing this helps others to reflect and improve theirs, hey, that'd be a warm thought too.

I won't be providing the full list, because a) it'd be overkill, b) not all of them are appropriate for this forum, and c) it's a fluid document.  Others will come to mind over time, I'm sure.

I present them in no particular order.

#27 She Wins Arguments with Me, and with Great Frequency, but #12 Does so Firmly but Politely

This might seem like an odd thing to put on a list of why you love someone.  I was raised in a family of people who loved to argue.  We argued all the time, both with great passion and dispassion.  We seldom backed down.  We are became quite good at it.  And because we approach debate so readily, with both skill and passion, it's not uncommon to find people reluctant to engage with us.

But I love losing a good argument, because it represents an opportunity for growth.  There was something I didn't understand or was mistaken about, and now I've been corrected or informed.  Liza-Ann is not afraid of me.  She knows sometimes I'm completely full of shit.  She has no fear about explaining to me why I'm completely full of shit about a given thing, if she feels I'm completely full of shit about that thing.

She also argues firmly but politely, much as we Constantines try to always do, and that's the only type of debate I like to engage.

#19 Only Some Shared Tastes, #20 Understands the Need for Space

We have some shared tastes in music, in TV shows, and in games.  We also have tastes we do not share: video games, Dungeons and Dragons, Holly Hobby, or thrifting.  And I think the fact that we have both significant overlap and also significant differences is very important.  It means we are empowered to both share time together and have time alone.

Just as importantly, she understands, as I do, that this is key to a good relationship.  Kahlil Gibran, in The Prophet described it as "And stand together, yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

All too often, people enter relationships not understanding the difference between sacrificing or compromising time or views versus sacrificing yourself.  It's an important distinction.  It's a mistake I made once myself in a horrible, horrible way from which it took some time to recover. 

In a good relationship, there are opportunities for evolving, often in responses to the challenges placed before you by one another, but that's not the same as "becoming who they want".  One shouldn't become a servant of the other.  One shouldn't become "just like" the other.  And that means there are things you both enjoy, and there are also times spent apart doing the things you each enjoy that the other does not.  You remain two separate selves.... who love sharing time with one another.

#1 She Tolerates Me

I know that I can be sarcastic, arrogant, dismissive, and a whole kaleidoscope of annoying in different ways.  Sure, we all have our eccentricities, and we all learn to live with the little annoyances of our partners.  But that's just it: it's key to a relationship that we are able to look past these things, I know some of mine are doozies.  Some days I'm not sure where she finds that patience, but she does.  Nearly thirteen years on, and she still does.

(Learning "let him have some caffeine and wake up first, he's intolerable when he first wakes" was a big help, I'm sure.)

I welcome appreciate love rely on that patience.

#9 She's a Great Mom

I had never wanted kids.  It was with some trepidation that I came into this relationship, and it was very long time before I felt comfortable wearing the word "parent".  But she has always and consistently been such a shining example of good parenting, I could not help but learn from her and come to a much better understanding of it myself.  In time, as was inevitable, I came to truly love Dan and to embrace my role in his life, leaving us wondering how we ever naively thought some sort of compartmentalization was possible in the first place.

#26 We Can Conquer the World Together

And for the last one I'll speak to today, one of the most important.  She's my partner.  Our relationship is not simply one of co-habitation and sex with a division of responsibilities.  Our relationship is a partnership.  Neither of us confines our thinking to "What is my part?" but rather asks "What is best for us?"  And as crazy as it might sound, I think it's entirely possible for people to be in a long term relationship without ever coming to think that way, instead living with one foot perpetually out the door in their mind.

I'm a worrier.  It's hard to be as analytical as I am and not be a worrier at times.  I work very hard to "leave the woman at the river" as much as I can, but nonetheless, it's easy sometimes for me to get worked up over small things or be unable to set aside some minor issue that's rattling around in my head.  But any time I get anxious, really worked up, I remind myself that I have Liza-Ann, and my faith in our partnership heartens me.

I have a very real, very warm sense of "We're in this Together Now".

Y

"Up till now I used to pass my time

Drinking beer so slowly, sometimes wine

No god, air, water, or sunshine

And honesty was my only excuse

I took your love and I used it"

["Honesty is no Excuse", Thin Lizzy]

I live my life with very few regrets.  I try to own everything I've done, good and bad.  "It was the best decision at that time".  It doesn't excuse everything I've done, and it's not license to repeat mistakes either.  But I've learned to forgive myself for my failures and I think it important we all do.

I also think it's important we learn from our mistakes, and leverage them to make ourselves better people.  So this past year of #MeToo and #ItWasMe has caused me to do a lot of soul-searching in regards to past relationships and my treatment of women, and to really think about the kind of man I am and the kind of man I have been and most importantly the kind of man I want to become.

I'm a part of that very large group of men who have long-deluded themselves with the self-assurance that "I'm one of the good guys", who lament "nice guys finish last", and who spent their youth and early twenties asking "why do chicks dig assholes?"

If, in your youth, you befriended girls for long periods while working up the courage to ask them out, only to pull back on that friendship later when you were rejected and it became obvious that the romantic entanglements weren't forth-coming for your long-term investment, the question you need to ask yourself is whether you (like me) were just playing an emotionally-manipulative long-con from the very start.  Because that certainly qualifies you as an asshole too.  As for why they "dug assholes" instead of you, maybe it's because those other guys were actually more honest about their interests.  And you, well, you never actually asked, did you?  At least not until you overcame your cowardice and had raised the stakes to a point where they didn't want to take the risk.  Did you then leave them heart-broken when you revoked what they believed a genuine friendship?  That's just dirty.

I get that now.  I didn't get that then.  I no longer look at Young Pat with the compassion I once did.  Evil doesn't run around toasting "To Evil!"  Evil convinces itself that what it's doing is good, and fair, and justified.  Young Pat was very good at deluding himself that way.  And for that I'm sorry, but for what it's worth I assure you he got all the heartache he deserved.

"Good guy?" is also not a binary equation.  It's not either or.  There are varying degrees of good-guy-ness, I think, and on that sliding scale, I (still!) like to assure (delude?) myself I'm on the better end.  But I know I wasn't always here; it's something I've striven toward as I've gotten older.  I know there's still room for improvement, and that's why I spend time in reflection, pondering mistakes I've made and how not to make them again.

I want to be a better man person.

I'm not going to dive into a list of apologies owed for past transgressions (though there is one in my head, as you might guess), but there is one thing, one odd little thing, that has been bugging at me, and it is the reason I decided to write today.

I've always tried to learn from every relationship I had, even the bad ones.  In fact, in the case of the worst ones it's the sort of "silver-lining" and for even the most painful of them I can reluctantly list things I came away with.

But there was one brief one, from a long, long time ago, that I could never point to and say "and that's where I learned this".  It was short-lived and doesn't make the list of past relationships I ever talk about.  Even most of my closest friends wouldn't be able to name her.  Most never met her.  She is someone I lost contact with shortly after the day I dumped her.

But of late, she's become a splinter in my mind.

It's not exactly something I did wrong.  It's just... something I did... stupid?  It was a long time ago, and I'm not sure "regret" is even the right word.  It wasn't something I did, but something I didn't do, and it was something I didn't do mostly because it was something I couldn't do. 

I was a young man.  I didn't have the tools to even begin to understand what I was really dealing with.  I don't recall my reaction when she told me what she told me.  I assume I had nothing to say. 

Ours was a strange relationship.  I'd not had one like that before, and I've not had one like it since.  It was intensely physical yet emotionally distant.  It was frequently impolite or even downright rude (on her part more than mine).  We communicated with a whole different vocabulary than to which I was accustomed.  We succeeded at having great sex but failed miserably at most attempts at romance.  It was truly strange, surreal even.

She was the victim of an incredibly powerful trauma in her childhood, the gravity of which would be obvious to me today, but which I did not properly appreciate back then.  I'm not about to detail it.  It's not my story to tell.  But I will characterize it as "horrific" and I don't think that's overstating it.

And while lacking the tools to help her properly unpack the kind of emotional baggage she was carrying might be excusable, lacking the compassion I could have and should have shown her given what I knew was far less so.  Characterizing her as "batshit crazy" afterward when explaining the reason for our breakup was pretty goddamn far from fair too.

I remember the day I dumped her.  I remember some of the things I said.  I was so full of righteous indignation.  Because I was selfish.  Because I was an asshole.  It was all about me.  It was about my needs.  But I felt so justified.  It was my day.  It was my special day.  So I was justified, because it was my day.

And maybe on that day, about that one thing, maybe I was.  Maybe I was entitled to be upset.  Maybe it was perfectly reasonable.  But the truth is that looking back I think I never really did right by her, ever.  Not on any of the other days in the weeks or months that preceded that one.  I never tried to really take the time to contemplate what her needs were or how I might best meet them.  I took what I wanted without ever really stopping to ask what she wanted or needed in return.  I told myself we had an understanding and that as long as we were both honest with each other - which we were - that whatever happened happened and whatever happened was fair.

But life hadn't been fair to her.  And her ability to express, honestly, what it was she probably needed most, that was compromised.  What she wanted most, I suspect, was simply compassion.  What she needed but couldn't vocalize was to just be treated with some dignity and respect and assured that things would work out.

But I wasn't listening.

Now, decades later, I finally feel like maybe I have, at long last, learned something from that relationship.

I've learned that sometimes the price of being raised with the ideals of toxic masculinity isn't always obvious.  Sometimes it's more subtle.  Sometimes it means missing out on a chance to simply be nice and listen to someone who so desperately needs it, to help because you're in a position to do so.  Sometimes an opportunity to be a decent goddamn human being flies by unnoticed.

Our culture teaches boys to take. 

It does not teach them to give.

Quarter

"some dreams get taken before they
get broke and there are some who claim
that stars need their own galaxies
a vacant stage waiting for a scene"

["Deck in Between", Pathological Lovers]

Quarter.

For a few weeks leading up to today, I have been wondering what to write about.  I knew I likely would.  Even setting aside the date, several times of late I've come to Blog Spot intending to write and either opened a new post or re-opened the unpublished start of "46.1" that I tried several times to write a while back, typed a little, and then likely discarded what little I'd done before walking away.  It's unusual for me to feel like writing and yet feel like I have nothing to say.  This blog is normally quite the opposite.  I only write because I have something to say.

And so March 2nd arrived, along with that certain expectation that I would write.  If it is not on the part of my handful of readers, then on my own.  I like to blame them, but the truth is that it's a yoke I carved myself.  If there's one day of the year that the people close to me really know to just step back and give me space to do as I like, it's this one.  But I always expect myself to write.  I usually want to.  Seldom does the day come and go without me at least sitting to try. 

"Quarter".  That would be my title.  When I woke this morning, that was all I could decide.

It's been a quarter of a century since my mother died.

The idea of demarcating my life by milestones of "time passed since my mother died" is a bit sad.  I don't think of it like that though.  Not day to day, certainly.  I don't want this to be like that, exactly.  But I do take this day every year as a "day of reflection", and on it, and leading up to it, that question always pops into my head.  Wow.  How long has it been now?

I had lunch with Nancy, as I often do.  (Sometimes Susan, too.)

'How much do you still remember?' she asked.

"Bits and pieces," I said, "Just bits and pieces."

For a man who has cheesecloth in that part of the brain that's supposed to house memory, twenty-five years is a lot of erosion.  So much of it is gone now, worn away by time.  Lost.  'Like tears in rain.' 

My sister and I spoke a while, about many things, some of them the struggles of our youth.  The unfortunate truth is most of my childhood was watching my mother's downward spiral into quadriplegia.  The only memory I have of her actually walking is a foggy one I can't tell is a real memory of an actual experience or just a vivid recurring dream I had through my teenage years, and I'm inclined to think it is the latter.

So as much as I speak fondly of her and of the things I learned and of our time together and my immense respect for her, as a mother and as a person, most of my memories of childhood are not particular pleasant ones.  They are of the horrible, painful part of her life, and of ours.  They are of her struggle through MS.  Sure, I heard the stories of the past.  I remember the tales of dancing and skating and going for long walks with my father.  "I wore my legs out," she would say.  "Some day I will dance again," she would assure me.  I believed her.  But those were just stories for me.  I never witnessed any of those good times of her younger days.  They were legend.

Legend has it, there was a time when her life was full and fun and wonderful.  Legend has it, there was a time when it wasn't pills and wheelchairs and being carried to and from bed and up and down stairs, or struggling to find the strength to cough, or drinking with a straw because she couldn't raise a glass to her mouth.  Legend has it, there was a time when she was dating Dad behind her parents' backs and they came home early and he climbed out the kitchen window and she pretended she'd absent-mindedly poured two cups of tea instead of one when her suspicious mother asked.  How they loved to tell that story.

That was a great legend.

And that's why when I write of her, it's always about all the things she gave me, taught me, showed me - in spite of the odds being stacked against her - and not about the 'truly happy times' we shared, because, well, there simply weren't that many.  But don't think me ungracious.  She was, and a quarter-century after her passing, remains, an incredible human being.

After lunch, as I drove about running a few errands and picking up Dan, one of those few vivid memories I still have of her did surface and rattle around my head.  Twenty-five years of erosion hasn't left me much, but I'm glad it has left me a few things.  Bits and pieces.

Her whole body quivered.  She rocked and shook in her wheelchair.  She kept opening her mouth to gasp for air, but she didn't have enough strength to get the air into her lungs.  So her mouth opened and closed and opened and closed, and she shook her head in frustration.  She tried desperately to make a sound but no sound came out.  I could see tears welling in her eyes.

It was what I had just told her.  I did this.  I was filled with a flood of mixed emotion.  Telling her  was the right thing, but now the fear that I'd actually hurt her was rising up inside me.  I did not anticipate such a physical response.  This could be serious.  What if she really couldn't catch her breath?  Do I shut up or keep going?  She's so weak now.  What if this is the thing that kills her?

I kept going.  I wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do, but I kept going.  I couldn't stop.  I had to press on.  And she continued to rock and shake and struggle as I kept blathering on.

I have long ago forgotten what it was I told her.  I have long ago forgotten what tale of tomfoolery or winding joke or perhaps even drunken escapade of my friends and I it was that I spoke that day which got her so wound up into that state.

But I remember how her whole body shook and how she gasped, tearfully choking out an occasional audible chuckle, with her ear-to-ear smile.

I remember how sweet and precious a sight that full-body laughter was coming from her tiny, fragile frame.  It was a rare, chance miracle in our life together.  You.  Have.  No.  Idea.  

But let me assure you, if you did, you'd have kept going too.  

I had never before seen my mother truly, truly laughing her ass off.

v46

"We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them;

we stifle the humanity of boys.

We define masculinity in a very narrow way.

Masculinity becomes this hard, small cage,

and we put boys inside the cage."

["We Should All Be Feminists",Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie]

In my early 40s, when I would reflect on myself - who I'd become, who I was becoming - I'd reached a point where, quite frankly, I didn't expect to change much any more.  I expected minor course corrections, certainly, in my slow spiral toward becoming that cranky old man who shakes his fist in the air and mumbles at them 'darn kids' to "get off my lawn!" but I'd not anticipated a sizable refactoring of who I am or how I think and feel.  I anticipated a slow but steady path toward my twilight years, and little else.

But life, particularly these past few years, has brought me something very different.  Outwardly, I'm not a radically different person than I was two years ago.  I'm in love with the same wonderful woman, raising the same awesome kid.  I have the same house and the same job.  I mostly enjoy the same hobbies.  But inwardly, I find myself thinking differently and feeling and seeing the world so very, very differently.  So much so, in fact, I scarcely know where to begin.

This weekend I found myself watching the third season of a show I've been watching over the last few years, and realizing I was seeing it from an entirely different perspective, because it strikes on particular topics I've been contemplating a lot these past few years: the nature of masculinity, of relationships, of our culture, of our changing world, of the need for our culture and mankind itself to evolve and mature.

When I started drafting this post a few weeks back, I began with a quick review of my last "v" post, intending to continue from there.  I wrote about how I feel about my body and my current health and getting older, blah blah blah.  I had a paragraph or two on whether or not I'm getting better at handling stress (spoiler: no).  I'm still working on not being such a sarcastic prick at every turn and am, in fact, getting better, though sadly I now hear Dan doing it and have to correct him too and know it's my fault for leading him down that bitter path.  Oh, and I'm still a shitty judge of character when it comes to others.  I had paragraphs of reflection on that but it was all very... tepid.  Banal.  Now deleted.

The real change, and it's been considerable (but also only just beginning) has been in the way I see and digest the world day to day.

This past year in particular, as I've gotten more in touch with my own vulnerabilities, I had shed as best I can the mask of toxic masculinity and its prescription for stoicism.  I've found it worth noting that when one is living with the mask, even the inward journey of self-discovery can suffer from the lies we tell.  We don't just delude others, we wear it for ourselves.  And much thought that arises from the subconscious, much "gut-reaction" to the things others do and say is frighteningly programmatic.  When you spend time in your own head wondering about how and why certain things go on in your own head, it's easy to get a bit lost.

There is, of course, much benefit, especially when you can approach it with honesty.  For instance, I've gotten more in tune with not just where my various stresses come from, but why.  I'm now better able to admit, to myself and others, where precisely my "work stress" comes from, as an example, instead of leaving it only as the generic socially-acceptable "things at work have been busy".  Busy is not what stresses me.  Busy means the day goes quicker.  Hell, busy means less guilt over 'goofing off' because I'm not busy.  Work stress derives largely from particular social interactions with certain individuals.  Sure, it's sometimes the work itself, but far less often.  It's the dealing with challenging interactions under a code of acceptable language - because they're coworkers, because they're employers, because I'm a consultant who has to couch things in the gentlest of terms as much as possible.  As much as I've sometimes been a socially awkward person in certain ways and at certain times in my life, I have over time developed a particular set of skills that work for me, empowering me to better handle some scenarios and come across as very bold and confident, whether I actually am or not.  But those particular skills - the attitude, the choice of language - don't fit the work environment well, and certainly not in all scenarios, and therefore sometimes put me at a disadvantage.  Ergo, stress.  Knowing and admitting the source of the stress doesn't simply hand-wave it away, of course, but it helps immensely in planning what to do about it.

But to get back to a more general sense of the crux of things:  a fire was lit in my brain I can't put out, and it's a little tricky to even describe the nearly ever-present extent to which it now burns.  It reminds me of something odd that happened in my early 20s.

I had spent a lot of time instructing at the front of a classroom, and my focus became instructional techniques themselves.  I became an expert on the subject, and worked as a Standards Officer, watching others instruct so I could debrief them and provides suggestions for how to improve their instructional skills.  It included everything from their use of chalkboards (dating myself there), whiteboards, or other instructional aids to where they stood and how they spoke.  There are actually a considerable number of subtleties in the way classroom lectures work at their most effective (which sadly, is still not terrible effective despite their popularity).  I got very good at watching how people taught.

But it messed with my head.

When I returned to university for classes, I could sit through a lecture and absorb none of the material.  I could tell you where the prof stood, their intonations, how they moved, how they posed questions, how they used the training aids... but beyond the key points, all details were lost.  My focus had shifted, and it was a struggle to push it back.  It had a considerable negative impact on my studies for some time.

So now, in similar fashion, I've spent so much time this past two years pondering the nature of gender and gender-equality... (What is masculinity? What is 'male'?  Why are there gender roles in the first place?  Am I a feminist? What kind? What needs to change?  What can I change in myself?  What can I do to help facilitate change in others?) ...that I am now suffering from the same inability to "turn off the scrutiny" that I did with instructional techniques so many years ago.

In the interest of becoming a better man, I've stumbled down a mental rabbit hole I'm not sure I can easily climb out of.  I'm not sure I want to climb out of.  I'm not sure I should want to climb out of.  I feel like Roddy Piper donning the sunglasses in They Live.  I'm astounded by how pervasive it is when you're paying attention.

I listen to women talking to men and hear the non-confrontational timidity with which they present things and I reflect on what it is they don't, won't, or can't say.  Is this how they've been conditioned to talk?  During this Christmas season I wasn't seeing the children's toys so much as pondering the nature of said children's toys.  What messages do they send?  Do the parents realize? 

I do my best to remind myself not to judge.  The point of this journey of self-discovery is not about those people I'm observing; it's about me.  It's about me examining the ways in which I can become a better (and ultimately even happier and more fulfilled) person.  Enlightenment is one of the more challenging and painful parts of that.  It has to be.  Enlightenment is not a place to be found or a goal to be achieved, but a state of constant evolution.

Those timid women?  When the Tao Te Ching describes the use of acquiescence as a leadership and survival skill, it's no coincidence it describes it as "Know the role of the male, but stick to the role of the female" to do so.  That shit dates back to about 600 BCE.  This is a very old problem.

I find myself paying a lot more attention to the ways in which I and other men around me interact with women now.

Those parents?  They are buying the things that are popular and the things those kids are asking for because it's what we've all been convinced is appropriate.  The parents are unwitting victims just as much as the children are.  It's what they were taught.  They're buying their kids the same kinds of toys they enjoyed as children, in the perpetuation of cycles we've not (yet) sufficiently challenged. 

I reflected on my own choices in entertainment and on my own "Christmas toys".  I spent much of the Xmas break playing one game I've been playing for months, where I lead a guerrilla war against alien oppressors in which I give no hesitation to civilians in the streets being caught in my rocket blasts or flamethrower path, and another new (to me) one where I ran around stabbing and slashing innumerable people and creatures with my lightsaber because... of some reason in the cut-scenes I've obviously not found memorable.  I finished that second one though, so I'm soon to start an another old PS3 game, this time where I get to do Mixed Martial Arts.

I'm working very hard on myself these days, trying to make myself pause and really hear the opinions of others, asking how the differences in the experiences of their lives has led them to a different place, mentally, than mine.  But I'm not very good at it yet.  It takes practice.

I ponder the things in my own past that have led me to this place, mentally, and think of some for which I probably owe a few apologies for things I can only hope are long forgotten.

But I have hope for the younger generation.  Dan?  No interest in things like "first person shooters" and I hope it stays that way.  He recently introduced me to a cute, cooperative game called Snipperclips. 

He may yet free me from my cage.