the chicks dig the tinger

The thing about aging that surprised Mike the most, more than the joint aches or inconsistent body parts, was his longing for quiet. He would find himself constantly seeking secret pockets in his life, small crannies of peace, corners in coffee shops, benches under trees, tucked away pub seats, anything that would afford a simple silent moment of evenness.

It was during one of these hidden moments when Mike was approached by a woman. She asked to join him, only for a second she said, in a booth at a random bar where he sat nursing a beer. He had slipped into the semi-darkness after a follow up dental appointment just up the street. He became a bit overwhelmed by the bustle of the city so he ordered a Coors Light and started watching darts on a television that hovered and flickered in the corner. The competitors were fat and tattooed. He could tell the crowd was raucous even with the audio on mute. Reminded him of a bar he used to go to when he was young. Long tables full of small glasses and jugs of beer. Everyone waiting for a reason to chant.

He sat. He sipped. Breathing through his nose. Closing his eyes so the lashes just grazed the lids. Until she approached.

“Sure.” He told her, more out of politeness than curiosity. She sat down next to him instead of across, adding to the oddness of her asking to sit with him in the first place.

“My name is Libby.”

She offered no hand.

“I’m Mike.”

So he didn’t either.

“Pleased to meet you Mike, appreciate you letting me sit with you.”

It was at this moment where Mike thought, oh great, selling something or a bible thumper. He was figuring one more sip of beer before he would gather up the small amount of nerve it would take to tell her politely to fuck right off. But turns out she was neither selling something nor asking anyone to convert. She just sat there. And sighed. A big breathy sigh that forced her even further into herself. She seemed earnestly tired from something – or of something – and he could appreciate that. Be almost attracted to that.

“Everything ok?” He asked.

“Yes fine thank you. Just need a moment.”

“Are you hiding from someone?” He was kind of joking.

“No, are you?” She was not.

This would have been a fair question if she was asking it from a different seat. Instead of here, where her yoga pant brushed up against his khakis.

“No, I just came in here to get away from all of that out there.”

Mike thumbed over to the large window adjacent to where they sat where all the bobbing heads were passing by. It was a constant stream. Some were bald, some with giant amounts of hair. Lots of earphones. A few man buns. A few Bettys. More Veronicas.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but why did you ask to sit with me?”

There were many empty high tops, booths and normal tables in the pub. A few raggedy looking men were at the bar, hunched, watching the same dart match as Mike, but other than that, he and his new pal were the only ones here.

“Well Mike, if that is your real name, the thing is that I have been here before and this is the first time I have seen you in here. I guess…”

A couple of years ago, just after he turned 40, Mike noticed he was moving from being a good listener to a person who was just waiting to speak. Recognizing this trait in others, he was disappointed he could no longer focus on what other people were saying. All he wanted was a small pause so he could offer the perfect joke or his own experience and then bask in the subsequent attention. Whether it was a chuckle or eyebrow queer, he craved it and he could not stop doing it.

He interjected. “This is my first time here. And my name is Mike. As I mentioned, I am not hiding from anyone. There is no one to hide from.”

Without being asked, a male server approached and placed a highball glass full of amber liquid in front of Libby. It had two cherries embedded on a novelty plastic sword and a pulpy lemon wedge hung from one side. She took a long sip and dunked the lemon into the liquid.

“A bit of a loner are we?”

When Libby approached and asked to sit down no real crazy bells went off in Mike’s head. Her blue eyes were serious yet soft. Her brown hair was neatly pulled back and held together with a thick red elastic band. Her face was angled, nose beakish, lips full, friendly, like she was always waiting to get the joke. A She looked like tired J-crew model, not cigarette and coffee haggard, but saddled with an interesting face that was not specifically waspish or sematic. She wore black yoga pants covered by a long t-shirt and a light blue sweater that hung casually off her left shoulder. On her wrist, four silver bangles. On her fingers, no rings. In her ears, diamond studs. Her age was neither too young nor too old to ask to sit down next to a stranger. Probably in her early thirties, but Mike’s been wrong about this kind of thing before.

And now Mike had a decision to make. He could firmly and politely tell this semi-attractive woman that he came into this little pub to get away from everyone, not sit next to her. If she started screaming or stood up and smashed her drink on the floor, so be it. He would gulp his last sip, stand up and walk back out to the bright sidewalk. If she was normal and accepted his request to be alone, she would likely take her cherry-filled drink to the bar or to another seat to wallow in her own personal melancholy.

The other option was to engage. To let her in a little bit and tell her why he has no one to run away from. Tell her that his 14 year old son is currently 90 minutes away at a private school that he does not pay for. Tell her that his wife of nine years fell in love with his best friend of 20 years. Tell her that crowds don’t really annoy him, but make him so anxious it feels like his brain is trying to escape his skull through his ears. Tell her that he craves invisibility. That none of his pants have top buttons. That he eats irrationally and irregularly. That his jovial and once impeccable sense of comic timing has been reduced to cranky sarcasm. That no one really wants to be around him much anymore.

“Look Libby, it was nice meeting you, but if it’s ok, I would like to finish the last few sips my warm beer by myself.”

She stood, wisps of hair escaping the elastic and replied.

“Your lips barely move when you talk.”

And she walked away. Drink held only by thumb and forefinger.

Leaving him alone with his last two sips of warm beer.

On week today, my family and I are moving to a farm just outside of Kettleby, Ontario, about 50kms north of Toronto. It is not a house in a suburb, it is not small house in a tiny hamlet, it is a large(ish) 130 year old farmhouse on about five acres of groomed land, adjacent to a 100 acre working farm – corn I think and, well, I don’t know what else, I am not a farmer. We can’t see any of our neighbours, we can barely hear Lloydtown-Aurora Side Road, the closest road to our house.

It is isolated, a bit lonely and spectacularly beautiful.

The decision to move to this farm was made quickly. Not necessarily haphazardly, but definitely with the notion that whatever challenges that smack us in the face when we get there, they will be managed at that time. Obviously all the administration of life was thought of, school registration, commuting routes, the all important WiFi hook up, but the emotional management of uprooting our very urban existence for a rural one has yet to truly be addressed.

 So why are we doing it?

There are many answers here, some pat, others easily drawn out and dissected.

I could lie and say the main reason is because I wanted to offer my boys a slightly different take on life. One where the most up-to-date Iphone is not the most important thing in life. That it is OK to put down the screen and pick up a thick blade of glass and trumpet it through your thumbs. That not everyone wears flat hats and makes gangsta symbols or duck faces and Instagrams it. That creating funny Vines in a farm field is way better than watching salacious ones holed up in your bedroom. That being outside is way better than being indoors.

 I could also lie and say that it was because I needed to reconnect with Steph. That the attraction and acceleration and pace of the city combined my uncontrollable envy was causing me to resent her and either bottle up uncomfortably or get way too comfortable with a bottle.

 It wasn’t about getting closer to immediate family, providing them with an increased level of priority in my life, to let them know that I am willing to pack up my sexy, stylish big city life (sarcasm alert) to spend more time languishing in the bosom of their occasional judgment and often needed solace.

It definitely was not about the increased cost, the longer commute and potential devastation of another new school for Hudson at the delicate crossroad age of 12 years old.

What it is about for me is change. Change for me and as a result, change for my entire family. Simple as that. I needed to experience more in my life. I needed something different and also as a result, to show my boys that sometimes different is just fine thank you very much.

My past is riddled with banality turning into devastation with one bad decision. I have a penchant for doing negative things for a) attention and b) just to stir things up. Now I have not done anything dramatic for a long, long time but once you have the taste for destruction, you quickly recognize the festering flavour underneath your tongue.

The farm seems like a pretty wholesome alternative to seriously affecting those I love so much that surround my life.

Besides, it just smells so fucking awesome up there.

Stay tuned.

Hope:

Did you think your life would be like this?

Martin:

What do you mean?

Hope:

When you were young, was this the life you imagined for yourself.

Martin:

You know I can’t remember anything before I was 30.

Hope:

That’s a cop out.

Martin:

It’s almost the truth

Hope:

Seriously?

Martin:

The full truth is I don’t remember sitting in a field somewhere, sucking a piece of grass wondering what my life was going to be.

Hope:

Don’t be an idiot.

Martin:

Seriously – I do not remember a specific moment where I imagined what my life was going to look like. Did I want to be married? Yes. Kids? Also yes? Happy? Of course. But I had no specific thoughts of what it would be like to have those things. What it would feel like.

Hope:

What does it feel like?

Martin:

It feels like 44. Why all the questions? Bored or just projecting?

Hope:

Bit of both I guess.

Martin:

Well don’t. Work is shit right now and I don’t need my wife poking her finger in my ribs for reaction.

Hope:

Ok – I will back off. For now.

Martin:

Thank you. Now let’s go shotgun a box of wine.

Hope:

Agreed. Meet you in the living room in two minutes.

It was a decent night for an insomniac. A 3:12am bathroom break was just a pause before making it back to my bed and quickly returning to sleep. I woke for the second time just after 7:00am, slipped into the shower and began my day. The house remained silent other than sports highlights murmuring and flickering in the dim morning light. I sat on the red vinyl bar stool in his kitchen eating a bagel with peanut butter and sliced banana. Popeye, our oval-eyed beagle, stared at the smear of peanut butter tenuously clinging to the side of my cheek. It did not fall. It was located and licked.

At the bus stop all I could think about was my current email flirtation target. I quickly shook it off, assuming whatever interest I had secured from the confines of my cubicle was likely over. It was three weeks ago when we both started stringing words together to make the days more bearable. A couple of sighs were produced – a pang here, a blush there – but my unrequited fondness for Sarah had long passed since the three dates they went on 11 years ago. I was married now. So was she. Yet I still liked saying her name out loud, reading her effortless use of the word fuck, picturing her blue eyes bug out and her embarrassed smile curl as she keyed in the profanity.

An old song played on my Ipod as the bus approached. It was a longing song, a falsetto singing about low times. It quickly turned my forced indifference about Sarah into something just a bit more romantic, all what iffy and teenage girl. I chuckled and drew a heart in the steamed up bus shelter. Cars whizzed by. A paper wasp landed on my shoulder and thankfully the bus approached, stopping me short of fingering our respective initials into a math equation. I got on the bus, paid the fare went to work.

The moment I got settled in at work, now people whizzing by, I fired an e-mail to Sarah to explain my recent self. There were exclamation points I regretted, a semi colon I totally fell in love with and of course the mandatory ellipsis to finish it off. Her response came quicker than I expected. I was on the phone when I saw the e-mail preview flash on top of a release I was writing. Just her name, her breezy, alliterative name catching my eye as I tolerated the awkward charm some wire service salesman was spewing.

Oh Tim, be careful, revel in the fact that someone loves flirting with you as much as you do with her, go home tonight feeling desired, and make your wife feel the same way.

There was nothing to do but follow her instructions. But the response was so perfect I knew I would find a way, manufacture some tactic to prolong the surface innocence. If she backed off, I would press a bit, like a gawking, hungry face in a bakery window until the eventual only antidote of ignore finally kicked in.

***

Laura used to think it was sweet, the sound of Tim’s gold wedding band tapping the headboard in the middle of the night. It was accidental, but a lovely reminder of their marriage. Over the years, as his sleep became more inconsistent, he became a pillow flipper, a head sweater, with the occasional sighs and often grunts of a man trying to find his way back to sleep. His ring would make contact at least four times a night, never scratching as there were no real edges, mostly just a strong tap – one hard substance against one more pliant – startling her awake and intermittently jarring her from her own much needed sleep.

Asking him to remove the ring was a sentence she could not utter without some eyebrow movement, a planted seed that would jolt him aware at some random moment while driving or taking out the trash. That bitch he would think later, carefully preparing how to confront her with the puzzle pieces now in place. She was paranoid of course, but not an odd character trait for someone screwing around on their husband.

Looking around, waiting for the inevitable third ring tap, her eyes adjusted to the darkness of their bedroom. It was so snide in its comfort, all billowy and welcoming, everything soft and so normal. Vanilla candle here, silver framed picture of their three-year old girl Tatum there, cover to the wicker laundry hamper askew, black sock missing its mark on the hardwood floor next to it. Dust bunnies crouched and cuddled in the corner. Just thinking that in the pocket of his once white bathrobe – the one hanging on the back of the bedroom door – is his bloodstained dental floss turns her stomach. And she knows it’s there. She is 100 per cent sure. The tiny coiled, pink snake of floss festering there in its terry cloth cave, gathering time, drying to dust.

She needs to get away from Tim, from the ugliness that she is allowing him to become.

***

During the work week, at around 3:30 in the afternoon, I start to get tired. It usually begins in my neck, thick muscles clenching as if my job was balancing dictionaries on my head. I stretch out my arms and rub with two fingers directly where the muscle in his neck becomes skull. This triggers the yawns. As if I swallowed a pride of lions, my mouth widens, teeth moisten, hot tongue hangs and dances. My eyes water as I open and close my mouth like a secret cave. Back to back to back yawns, a rare triple, as I try to make sense of the corporate blurb I am writing. “I know we are bound by our corp speak, but let’s try and make this one sing ok pal?” My boss would say out of the side of his mouth.

I slammed the file shut, forgetting to save. Save the whole three whole words I was able to squeeze out. Should I seek her out? Stupid social media making it so easy. I know I am stereotypically tired of the stale taste of eight years of marriage so maybe it was the offer of sharp language that kicked my sense of deviancy alive. I do enjoy the solid writing and Sarah’s instructive tone undercut by her own, much quieter longing was truly compelling. But I should back off. Tip toe away in place of a huffy stomp, to make it seem like I was never here. Because, deep down, I know shouldn’t be.

Sarah, I don’t want to fuck you, I just wanted to fuck with you a little.

The depressed mouse button feels hot against the tip of my finger. I could not resist.

***

Laura thinks about her ongoing affair with Duncan all the time. Not mooning, dreamy moments of rapture while dropping Tatum off at preschool. Her hands do not perspire gripping the wheel of her Tiguan while ignoring the impatient wails from the backseat. Her pragmatism constantly reminds her that she is not in love with Duncan, or even the idea of him. He knows it too and is perfectly content with their once or twice a week furious hook ups at his one bedroom condominium in the north end of Toronto. Laura’s thoughts about the affair are mostly questions about the cheating on her husband of eight years and how she has let her life slip away, one dirty text message at a time.

“Good morning Ms. Wilkins and good morning to you Tatum!!”  Tatum’s preschool teacher greets both of them as they arrive at the painted yellow door. She takes Tatum’s Dora backpack off of her and tucks it under her arm. Tatum runs inside and joins her equally cute playmates all huddled around a robot dog.

“Hi Barb, how is everything?” Barb is thin, like a talking Q-tip. “How is Tatum doing?”

“A-mazing – one bright little cookie!”

“No problems then?” Barb’s eyes bulge a bit, weighing down the rest of her face.

“Problems? Of course not! None at all, not a darn thing, she is total angel!”

Laura turns back to the classroom and lets Tatum knows she is leaving. “Bye angel!” Winking at Barb now. ‘Bye mommy,” she responds looking up from all fours, mimicking the creepy robot dog by quirking her head and ruff ruffing. Laura smiles and shrugs. Barb smiles and shrugs at Laura. Bet Barb isn’t fucking a mortgage broker. Bet Barb makes really tasty grilled cheese sandwiches.

Laura got in her car and zoomed away. Dropping off Tatum at preschool is part of Laura’s daily ritual. It’s exclusively part of her ritual because her interior decorating job offers more flexibility than Tim’s corporate public relations job. She has four stable clients, all housewives from Toronto’s well known affluent neighbourhood Rosedale. They all know one another, all too old to hump the pool boy, all filling their spare time creating interesting Starbucks orders or squinting at Aureolin swatches. Laura kind of likes them. She knows she will never be one of them as she doesn’t like Frye boots or plastic surgery enough. Her ability to find rare pieces to inhabit vacant sitting rooms affords her just enough status so the women treat her without impatient disdain. The consistent and never late payment of her invoices also makes it easy to shrug off any feeling of dollar bill insecurity. Laura’s first meeting is not until lunch, so a quick text to Duncan and she is off to have sex with a man who is not her husband, a man seven years younger, a man who affectionately praises her vagina as labtastic

***

Oh fuck Tim, I’m so irritated with my husband I want to flirt with you but I am too aggravated to come up with anything interesting.

Sarah’s e-mail reply did not arrive as quickly this time. In fact, I actually became so enamoured with the writing of this press release she managed to slip away from my mind completely. Boss man was pleased with the draft, his cherubic face smiling, bloated knuckles tapping his desk as he read it, leaving it completely free of red pen edits. This is fine my boy, just fine!

Before I could think of how to respond to Sarah, I had to pee. After a shake and a zip, I stared at myself in the mirror. Bit of grey around the temples, but still a pretty solid head of dark brown hair. I keep it reasonably short and when it does get a bit long, I add a dollop of product and slick it back a little. The crow’s feet around my eyes are deeper than I like, but for 37 years old, I was doing ok. Better than some of my balding, moustache growing (what the fuck?) paunch carrying buddies I have known since forever. I do have a bit of a muffin top, but it is seasonal, disappearing after a summer of light jogging as winter running in Toronto is for crazy people. One more glance at the mirror for a final time I almost wink. Hey there good looking. Another midday ego check passed.

I return to my desk and stare at a picture of his Laura, the two of us actually, laughing on a ski hill. I can see the reflection of the camera I am holding in Laura’s preying mantis designer sunglasses. We look happy. We were happy.

I am unsure if I could ever have an affair on Laura and it’s disappointing that my fidelity is not absolute. That if a perfect scenario, a perfect opportunity were presented, I may saunter over to the side of new and different desire. I wish the thickness of earnest love was still there with Laura, embedded in my chest and loins, so I could announce prophetically to the world that yes, YES! Indeed I would never fall into the arms or between the legs of another, that my hot blood still runs true, and not because of the consequences, but because of the passion, the sincerity and the lust I still feel for my wife of eight years. Boo ya! But I know that ardour is just not there anymore. Change the channel. Pass the chips.

***

Duncan’s bedroom is not much better than ours, Laura thought, naked, covered in a sheet somewhere between silk and rayon. He being single and just 30 was evident in his design style. Frat boy chic mixed with affluent family hand-me-downs. Lots of black lacquer and antique lamps, framed motivational posters and pictures of golden retrievers on sun soaked cottage docks.

“That was fun,” Duncan leaps onto the bed after returning from the washroom, his long penis flopping like a dog’s ear. “It was a nice surprise to get a text from you this morning.”

“Thank you for being so accommodating,” Laura replied, hugging the sheet closer to her body. “What time is your meeting?”

“In an hour,” he grinned impishly. “Why? You good to go again?” He grins and thumbs the tussled bed. “Save your energy for your client,” Laura discretely stands up, holding the slippery sheet against her breasts. “I have to head across town to go look at a mirror.”

“A mirror?” Duncan opens the top drawer of his tall, rustic dresser and pulls out black dress socks and boxers. He exclusively wears blue pin stripe boxers. The tradition contrasts his somewhat flaky character and Laura appreciates it. “What kind of mirror?”

Laura abandons all modesty and lets the sheet fall to the floor. She slips on her three to a pack La Senza thong on quickly, thankfully avoiding the toe hook, naked bunny hop, in front of a secret lover embarrassment.

“An antique 11 foot walnut triptych.” She replies, hoisting her 36 C’s into her bra and staring into Duncan’s blank face. “The expensive kind.”

They both pass each other in the bedroom, scooping up various items of clothing and accessories that were flung across the room in various stages of time challenged embrace.

Smooch, smooch, hug hug, text me soon baby doll.

Sure thing love. Bye now.

52 minutes after arriving at Duncan’s condo, Laura is now sated, smoothed out, still a bit moist and driving too fast to the west end of the city to look at, and arrange delivery for a $3200 mirror. A mirror that will hopefully not reflect how her freshly fucked guilt has ruined her make up.

***

My work cubicle is about 10ft by 10ft. Same as the other cubicles on the 14th floor of an office tower in the heart of the financial district. There is a small fichus plant in one corner, a miniature basketball net in another and all three and half walls smeared with office printer pictures of Tatum, the absolute love of my life. My job at a mid-sized investment management company is pretty boring. It’s not the job I work for, it’s the not too shabby pay cheque. My comfort and ability to leave right at 5pm everyday to rush home and see my Tatum is my primary objective. Everything else is just corporate politics, ticking clocks, middle aged women with ID badges attached to their belt loops and occasional brain numbing tedium.

The various shaped photos at various angles help me get through it all on most days. It’s her tiny brown ringlets, thin lips, slightly upturned nose and winter sky blue eyes that make elderly women in grocery stores stop and gasp. She wears overalls and high top Chuck Taylors. She toots when she sneezes and thinks it’s the funniest thing in the history of funny. She falls asleep in tucked under my arm while I watch Seinfeld reruns. I love her so much my chest actually throbs.

When Laura showed me the little white stick with pink circle (at 3am for some reason) my first thought was not that they were having a baby, but we were having a boy. The second and third thoughts were the fast forward vignettes of playing catch, or, more aptly, shooting hoops in the driveway at various stages of rim reach-ability. It was chips and Diet Coke watching the Superbowl, it was wrestling and video game buffoonery. It was basically permission for me to remain an adolescent for at least 20 more years so I could better relate to his son – a pretty sweet deal in my opinion. But then along came Tatum.

It was about a month into the second trimester when the ultrasound technician asked if we wanted to know the sex of our baby. Laura was 10 minutes late for the appointment and I, looking very financial district in a grey suit and mauve tie, was biting my nails in the medical building waiting room. I started my new job a month previously and was extremely anxious about being away from the office for any amount of time. Laura was elbows deep in the renovation of the dining room for the largest (and richest) of her four clients and had been cornered by Judith (in a smart pantsuit) and her contractor (also in a pantsuit, just not as smart) who could not agree on which wall to knock down. Laura kept trying to break away but Judith was having none of it, displaying militant indifference to the existence of any other problem other than her own. Finally she let Laura leave after ensuring she was onside with her wall demolition choice.

The frenzy of Laura arriving at the doctor’s office was brief and I pushed aside any anger at her tardiness to get back to the wonder of the appointment. Their technician was a middle aged Asian woman with hair so thin dark moles poked through the jet black hair to say hello. Her English (engrish?) was tragically halted and broken but she was enthusiastic, with a laugh like a chickadee, so the room quickly moved from annoying and harried to full excitement.

“Would you like to know sex of baby?” She asked, ultrasound wand goopy and moving all around Laura’s belly, faint heartbeat thumping so quick, so eager.

I remember looking at Laura, who was equally goopy with every intention of postponing the knowledge of the sex until the birth. The whole ‘one of life’s rare true surprises’ angle, was very much consistent with my romanticizing every nook and cranny of their lives. Laura, already decorating the room in her mind, of course wanted to know, wanted to avoid the blue/yellow debate, the returning of wrong gender specific onesies.

So before I had a chance to whimper out the words, “let’s wait”, Laura looked into the wonderfully goofy buck toothed grin of our technician and asked her if it was a girl. And the technician just smiled with her eyes, mouth pressed flat, and nodded. I, again pushing away the prick of anger caused by my wife, let it all sink in, the reality sluicing through my veins, blanketing his images of basement foozball fart fests to be replaced by, by what? Barbies and doilies? Pink chiffon boas and Laura’s oversized high heels? He had no idea what to think.

But when Tatum arrived four months later, looking like a naked mole rat, wiggling in the blood and the gunk and the sweat and the relief, I was freaking blown away on how strong and how instant the love for her was, how all my juvenile masculine forecasting was whisked away with the sight of my daughter, her eyes as big as the sun, staring vacantly back at him from under the Burger King like heat lamps.

*** L

aura never thought she was the type of woman that would have an affair. She was a bit wild during her twenties, more drinks and dance floor groping than she would like to admit, but when she committed, she stayed honest and faithful. Her first post university boyfriend was a bit of jerk, a derivatives trader with tortoise shell glasses and pointy Ferragamo shoes as shiny as his occasionally slicked back hair. They both worked hard – she was an industrious event planner at the time – and played hard at the various trendy bars and clubs located near the district where they both worked. He was tall; almost 6’5” and Laura loved walking into rooms with him and his elongated presence. He was attractive, as was she, and his big, occasionally loud personality would turn a simple after work drink into group shouts of tequila and sloppy bathroom stall make out sessions.It was only after 15 months of this booze fuelled fun fest Laura received a 1:24am phone call from her tall, loud boyfriend asking her if her husband was home. It wasn’t the question, it was the silence that followed, making Laura realize immediately that the man she so loved being with also loved being with someone else.

Two months and many baskets of French fries later, Tim strolled into her life. He was neither tall, nor slick and his shoes were usually flip flops. His hound dog eyes, coke- bottle shoulders and latent grunge goatee did not match his unique ability to make people squirm with his remarkable pointed and perceptive questions. It was these questions and sagacity that attracted Laura, not the plush, laid back character statement he was trying to make.

“Can I borrow your sugar?” Was the first question he asked while she was reading a book, sipping a latte. “Did you know chewing pens is a sign of sexual frustration?” Was the second.

Then he sat down and poured sugar into his coffee, smirking, staring, begging for a response. Laura stared back at Tim, the man she was eventually going to marry, and wondered if this was a calculated pick up move or not. Either way, she succumbed, more out of boredom than curiosity.

“I did know that actually,” she replied, placing the dog eared paperback on the table. “Why do you think this pen is so mangled?”

The 20 or so seconds of silence that followed Laura’s bold comeback was when she decided to shake off the cobwebs of the douchebag who was sleeping with four other women and get back in the game. 27 years old was not a time to be wallowing over the loss of something insignificant. There was a cute guy sitting right across from her. A bit ruffled, a bit milquetoast, but with a great little half smile that she was already feeling in various parts of her body.

“Hi I am Tim,” he said extending his hand. His thumb ringed hand.

“Nice to meet you Tim, I’m Laura.”

***

I feel anxiety in my chest when the end of the work day approaches. It’s a good kind of anticipatory anxiety that means I am getting closer to feeling the warm, skinny Tatum arms draped along my neck. There were no further e-mails from my recent crush, so all current focus was the fake ruffling of paperwork to let his co-workers know that my day was quickly coming to an end. The fact I was easily lost both in his work and his upcoming departure was surprising considering how eager I was to engage with Sarah earlier this morning. Was it seeping guilt? Sneaky indifference? Either way my focus is now on catching the subway and the one long bus that will bring me from work to his 2-bedroom semi-detached home on Douglas Avenue in the north end of the city.

Hw lng untl yr hme?

The cold text. Where vowels once stood, rounded and warm, now stands drunk consonants, broken and insulting. Their unlimited text plan – 60 bucks a month thank you very much – precludes any cost savings excuse from text speak. It was pure laziness that I expect from Tatum in about 10 years, not from my wife. She also knew as a professional communicator (my self imposed moniker) that any shortening of sentences or use of emoticons in chat or text was like poking him in the eye with exclamation point.

Barring any traffic disasters I will be home in exactly nine minutes. Can’t wait to see my favourite girl!

Spelling out the nine, naturally. Leaving Laura to question who I am talking about.

***

Exactly nine minutes later, Tim walks in the front door of his modest 2-bedroom semi-detached home on Douglas Avenue in the north end of the city of Toronto. Exactly 15 seconds after that, Tatum wraps her warm, skinny arms around her father’s neck. A fire burns in their working fireplace (first line of credit experience) and Laura makes dinner, actually breakfast for dinner, a family favourite, behind the same counter where Tim ate his peanut butter bagel 10 hours prior. Popeye the dog holds a pair of pink Hello Kitty socks in his mouth and wags his tail furiously, equally excited for Tim to be home.

“How was your day?” Tim asks, dropping his leather knapsack (containing a gum wrapper, a pack of secret smokes (three left), a bottle of relatively cheap cologne, a chewed up pen cap, a pack of Tums (four left, tinfoil tail swirl intact) and a Financial Post crossword with doodles along the edge (a cartoon dog he learned to draw when he was eight, and stick figures playing basketball).

The knapsack was hardly a physical burden to get home, but it made Tim feel very urban and a little granola. How should Laura respond? Tell him it started out great, especially the part where she strangely reached orgasm while Duncan’s long fingers were carefully knuckle deep inside her? Or should she just jump right in and explain that Duncan’s seminal fluid was much thinner than Tim’s and a bit bitter, earthy, like almonds dipped in blood.

‘It was fine, was able to score the massive mirror Susan was looking for, all at a tidy little profit for us.” “Woo hoo! I love profit for us!” Tim responds, moves behind her and kisses her on the back of her neck.

The bacon in the pan spits and lands on the back of his hand.

“Yowch” “Woo hoo, Yowch!” repeats Tatum, moving in between her mother’s legs.

Laura looks down and warns: “Watch it sweets, the bacon is angry at your father.”

‘What did I ever do to the bacon?” Tim boos hoos for Tatum’s sake and Laura can feel the wave of not cute anymore nausea punch her in the stomach.

Tatum laps it up. Popeye wants the bacon.

“Let’s eat,” says Laura.

“Breakfast for dinner!!”

***

The Langley dining room consists of a harvest table passed down from Tim’s father when he upgraded to something ornate to match his current wife. Tim sits at the head of the table, one of the few patriarchal things he demanded and something Laura could care less about. Even Tatum recognized the inanity of Tim’s royal demands, making fun of him by always sitting there, knowing his creased glare and finger pointing to her assigned seat was forthcoming. She liked sitting across from her mom anyway, she was an elegant eater and Tatum tried to copy her.

***

The familiar hum of a smart phone interrupted their first bite.

I instinctively roll my eyes at Laura. Her phone was always going off, including at some odd hours in the middle of the night. I never asked her about who was texting her at 2:24am, she had tons of female friends, some I adored and some I just felt sorry for. Laura acted as a sounding board for the dramatic and a wing woman for the desperate.

“Mine’s in my purse,” Laura said, scooping a fork full of cheesy eggs into her mouth

My phone in my front pocket buzzed again.

“Daddeee, check your blueberry.” Salty bacon, sip of juice. I fudged in his front pocket, pushing the phone up to my hand.

“Really Tim, at the dinner table?” Laura was mocked, light heartedly, surely putting it in the bank for later.

Sorry to do this Tim, but I am finding it difficult to not think of you. I am guessing you are sitting down for dinner right about now. I am hoping you are the kind of man that doesn’t check his email at dinner.

Eleven years ago, Sarah invited me to her parent’s house for their second date. It was a perfect summer evening. She was wearing a long, brown summer dress and leather gladiator sandals. Gold and silver bangles snaked up her arm when the vodka and soda met her lips. Her black hair contrasted in the white light of the sun, way too downtown for the uptown mansion district. I remember vividly her leading me to the veranda and casually raising her dress to reveal her new tattoo etched on the top half of her outer thigh. I had to concentrate to keep his breathing even, to remain casual about seeing the raw footage and the hint of boy short panties where the small cartoon Max from Where the Wild Things Are now attacked. The tattoo was camp, cute and approximately dangerous.

Later on, she sat across from me, legs crossed, occasionally shifting in her seat to offer more calve, more thigh, more forehead sweat. We spoke about silly things, about sexy things and I could feel himself stiffen as she told him how much she secretly enjoyed going down.

“We should stop talking about this…” I said, sipping wine and staring.

“I guess you’re right, we should stop talking about this.” She said immediately, holding the gaze, but obviously a bit disappointed.

I am amazed at the details that still resonate after all these years, especially considering I usually can’t remember where I left my car keys or the night of Tatum’s weekly swimming lesson. After the third date ended in indifference, I figured it was just another momentarily lusty moment that meant pretty much nothing to Sarah. I bet her memory did not include the scent of the flowering hyacinths that crept behind her or the hum of the hydro wires overhead or the occasional yelp of a small dog in the yard next to them, the street lights coming on and when she used the word somnambulant to describe her day or the awkward, heavy lidded thickness of the long driveway walk goodbye. Later on, back at my basement apartment, I knew I messed up and should have acted, should have stayed, should have second date felt her up. Aggression has never been my strongest asset. Just ask my wife.

***

“Whose turn is it for stories?” Laura asks Tatum, who was now sitting underneath the table, letting Popeye clean the eggs off her chin with his pink tongue.

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Staring at a blank page is probably a familiar beginning to any sort of journal/blog entry.  The need to write sometimes outweighs the ability to actually write something.  So please forgive the preamble as I try to locate a deep enough groove for words to lodge. 

Steph: Spoiler alert!!

Valentine’s Day is an obvious topic and the night did turn out pretty close to the way I wanted it to.  The boys were somewhat respectful of my request to retire to the upstairs as I needed some space to organize the quaint romantic dinner in front of the fireplace for Steph and me.  As she is in production, I gave her an 8pm arrival time to afford me an hour to put all the pieces in place so she could descend from the maelstrom of putting kids to bed and sit, on the floor, in front of a plate of mixed greens and warm herb encrusted goats cheese.  This worked for the most part, however she did slink down the stairs so quietly that I was unable to switch off the Raptor game, thus deflating the first impression of a candlelit room, with Valentine’s playlist and computer slideshow of our life playing in the background. 

Click – television is off and room is now ensconced in Sade and pictures of our kids Ken Burnsing in the background.  The salad is a hit, bought this cool four mini lettuces in a package thingy for $2.99 and was able to use one for a Caesar salad for the kids earlier (with homemade pizza where I finally was able to roll out the dough to fit the cookie sheet.  Previous attempts had it bounce back like a broccoli elastic and return to its rotund-shape – working with dough sucks).  So with a red leafy lettuce and a green stringy lettuce (not actual names), I added thinly sliced red onion, red pepper and cut grape tomatoes (in half?  nope, in quarters because that, is how I fucking roll.)  Yes the herbed goat’s cheese was store bought in the little round package, making it very simple to cut into fours and place in a banana bread pan for easy warming.  The first dressing I made was olive oil, white wine vinegar, seeded Dijon, clove of garlic and blueberries for a hint of sweetness.  I put it in the fridge for literally 15 minutes and when I brought it out, it had solidified like a little tart dressing gelatin mold.  I tried to nuke it back to liquid, but it turned out all gummy and there is no way I was going to ruin my pretty little colourful salad with a purple gelatinous dressing, I mean seriously.  So I went old school and olive oiled and vinegared the bad boy with just a hint of mustard for coverage and a little apple juice for sweetness.  Oh, the olive oil was basil infused so it had that going for it. 

So the main course.  I had promised salmon but the pieces at Metro were so small that I bought two tiny filets to surf and turf the hell out of this dinner.  I covered the salmon with a little Hoisin sauce and a hint of balsamic mustard because I don’t know what the hell I am doing.  Wait, I do know how to cook beef, salt and pepper, braise first to seal it, two flips for grill marks, let sit for at least 7 minutes after, roll eyes because it tastes so good. To complement the salmon and steak, I roasted asparagus and gorgeous (yeah I said it, so what) carrots with the leafy ends left on in ginger and olive oil.  Quartered new potatoes roasted in olive oil and sea salt finished off the plate. 

The meal was good.  The company even better.  We reminisced about the now 14 other Valentines we spent together (our princess Valentine) and how the almost 15 years together has flown by.  We were the hip urban DINKS, the subdued Danforth plus one, the adventurous global travelers and now the expanded North Toronto double income two kidded renters.  We have raised two reasonably spectacular boys which we both admitted was our greatest legacy.  We did all this laying next to a roaring fire in someone else’s house that we have made our home. 

Fast forward and after cleaning up together, we watched inane television eating our respective tubs of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and before too long 11pm arrived and we hit the sack.  To read three pages and fall asleep.

I get the Hallmark holiday barkings and the increased movement to basically ignore this consumerist driven singular day in the calendar.  But we used it as an excuse to press pause on the imbroglio of our lives and it worked.  Sure I busted my ass to make everything perfect, but I am the first to admit that A) I love to cook and B) I love to create environments of appreciation, so I am not complaining. 

As we have both recognized in our tenure as a couple, time together is by far the greatest gift of all. And if I have to do everything to slice two hours of alone time with my best friend, I do it with pleasure. 

As mentioned numerous times, my eldest boy, Hudson, age nine and a half, is a very sensitive human being.  He senses discord and melancholy in others and is very impressionable by the sentiment of various situations. He occasionally sulks and rebels against general happiness to ensure the room absorbs some of his seriousness, thereby allowing him to occasionally usurp the attention and bring it down to his own pensive level.  He is acutely aware of his own sensitivity and will use it in our rare,heated conversations.

“But dad, I am very emotional…”  He will claim, lip quivering,  after I take the bad cop role, after too much rational talk and I simply need to lay my foot down on very reasonable demands like putting socks on before going outside or doing homework before watching How to Eat Fried Worms.  So he works a bit and we both know it.  So sensitive and a bit smart.

So I am sensitive to his sensitivity, and, being a pretty sensitive dude myself, I am keenly aware of the type of person that Hudson could potentially grow up to become.  I am not discounting myself, deep down I think I am pretty decent man, but  I do wish I didn’t let things get to me so deeply.  And I think Hudson also takes on too much and lets it weigh him down. He questions too much, nervous and anxious about the administration of life, the details, sometimes hindering his ability to simply be a simple kid.

This also manifests itself into a lack of confidence, an almost instant refusal to participate in the unknown for fear of failure or reprisal.  There is no gusto, no verve, simply refusal and it’s very frustrating.  Now, admittedly I have not snatched the life bull by the horns and rode it screaming into the flaming ball of light, so again I use the easy answer of father compare which is neither fair nor reasonable.  We are different animals as Hudson will aptly suggest when I ask him, for example, to come watch basketball with me. (“I am not you Dad, I just don’t like sports.”)………sorry, wiping tears from my eyes.

So what do we do?  His confidence does  grow with the slow releasing of the tether, providing him the opportunity to fail or succeed without dire consequences.  The opportunity to keep track of his own allowed screen time, the spending of his saved money all at once, the daily feeding of pretty bunny Alice, all consequences he must realize on his own – except for starving Alice, lying sessile on the carpet.

But recently he asked to do something that, while fairly innocuous in the grand scheme of things, was still pretty scary. And the tail risk is one I will not acknowledge, much less write about.

He asked to walk to the grocery store alone.

And we let him.

Steph and I had discussed letting him do this but I decided to let him do it while Steph (less drama) and Tasman (less pressure) were out.  I gave him the parameters.  I live in a very urban area but in a very uptown (read uptight) area of Toronto.  There are dangers because it is a city, but lets face it, North Toronto is a pretty safe neighbourhood.  Sure you may get trampled by Grande non fat latte fueled SAHM’s, but for the most part, it’s a great place to raise kids.   There is no crossing of major streets to get to the grocery store that is a seven minute walk from my house.  It was Metro, chocolate bar, home within 20 minutes; don’t talk to strangers, run to fire station if anything goes wrong.  And he did it, in eight minutes total, running both ways. At first I watched the clock until I could not take it anymore so I went back to making meatballs. He burst in breathless, cheeks apple red, clutching a Coffee Crisp.  A nice, light snack.

Now, before you (Michele) begin judging me (Ma) and providing me all the reasons we should not have let him perform this simple task, let me just offer you the result.  He was blown away with this small sense of freedom and seemed to grow another five inches because of it (metaphorically, as he already is tracking for 6’5” or 6’6”, thanks basketball irony).  His smile was ear to freaking ear.  Amazed at his ability to handle this task.  Amazed at how easy it all was for him, in a hey – wait a minute – I can do this kind of stuff- awe but also equally amazed that I actually let him go.  Let him walk out the door alone, down the street alone, into the store alone, interact with the cashier (very helpful and friendly) alone and make his way back home.  All by himself.

I am still not comfortable with him doing it.  I think he is about a year too young.  But in this instance, I took a chance and afforded him the space to gain some confidence, to throw all that too much thought, too emotional, too sensitive crud he hears all the time and let him experience the thrill of freedom, of self, of self worth.

He asks every ten minutes if we need anything from the store, and I will eventually let him go again. But for now, he can hold on to that one moment of confidence, that will eventually be linked to the next moment, building this chain of confidence and helping him grow from sensitive boy to sensitive, confident man.

While I generally claim to be a reasonably intelligent person, one who relies on common sense and logic to help me navigate the tremors of everyday life, I am still amazed that I am amazed by the impact healthy living has on my body and brain.

Rewind one week ago today and I was lamenting and woe-is-meing about my ongoing struggles with anxiety.  This, of course, was after a Thursday, Friday, Saturday of gluttonous drinking and eating that left me shivering and shaking on the chair lift on the following Sunday.  Cue the waking up on Monday, feeling crestfallen about my perceived failures on the slope, my failures on setting an example of adventure to my children and feeling shame about my inability to cope to my wife, a general billowy malaise about my life in general.  I bang out a selection of whiny bon mots here in whinerville and it sits, gathering invisible dust until today.  Minus the brief exercise in mind spilling fiction.

So today, after a weekend of healthy eating (relatively, calm down) and pretty much no drinking and the best day of skiing of my life, I find myself remarkably energized.  Full of pith and vinegar.  Eager to attack the banality of my work day.  Getting solid nights of sleep (a biiiiig factor) and generally feeling pretty confident about a webinar I have to give tomorrow.  My kids are healthy, my wife is happy (right sweets?) and I am looking forward to the remainder of the winter, even desiring a good dumping of snow to make our Sunday ski jaunts fluffy and fun.

So, while they told me there would be no math, I can probably handle this equation.  Too much drinking + eating + lack of sleep = anxious and depressed Jason.  Moderate drinking +solid meals + full night’s slumber = eager and buoyant Jason.  Two words.  Duh uh.

I have shelved the novel for the time being.  It’s a bit sleazy and considering the audience here, it feels like I am censoring myself.  I will stick to the random blogging with the occasional poll, pop fiction, article-style writing to ensure all aspects of writing are being covered.

I would like to have three or four more children and three or four more dogs.  I would like to live on a vast plot of land that has a small but deep pond under a large willow tree.  There would be a long narrow dock where I could run and jump into the water.  It would be cold at first but quickly turn to refreshing.  There would be a white rowboat with old flowery plastic cushions on the benches.  You could lean on the cushions when you reached the middle of the pond and just wanted to float.

In the winter, we would drill a hole in the lake so water would seep up and freeze, offering us a smooth place to skate.  The rowboat would lean against a small hut, where we could plug in a kettle and serve hot chocolate.  An old log would serve as a bench in both seasons.  I would be surrounded by my kids and my dogs and I would sip hot chocolate loudly. Dogs would lick the droplets off my boots and my kids would say oh dad.

I would like the house to be a 10 minute walk from the pond along a meandering path.  On each side of the path there would be of ominous bushes with branches like fortunetellers’ fingers.  The eldest kids would tell stories about scratches from the branches, frightening the younger ones.  I would chuckle and tell them to not believe a word they say.  They would not listen.  The house would have a porch.  I would sneak to the side of the porch for the occasional miniature cigar. The kids would accuse me of always smelling like gum and the fireplace.

Oh the fireplace!  A massive stone hearth with a grey barn beam. So big the smallest of my children could almost stand in it, which she would do in the summer when it was too hot to burn toast, much less firewood.  There would be a chair in the corner that could seat two adults or four children and I would make up stories about my father’s stories.  About an albatross that perched on top of the navy ship or a white whale that followed the ship around for days.  I would mention the dolphins that swam beside the catamaran that one time, hurling their slick bodies out of the water in what only could be described as glee.

The older kids would start to ignore me and then the younger kids would be distracted by a crack of thunder or the sudden strobe of sheet lightning.  I would sip a beverage and fall asleep in that chair, reading glasses perched on my chest, youngest now nestled under my arm, finding her own place of peace.

I would startle awake and be alone, almost scared, house dark, until the sliding of my wife’s socked feet on hardwood approached.  Fell asleep in the chair again she would say and I would ask her to help me up.  You’re getting old she would say and would ignore her or not hear her.  The glass of water would be cold.  The flannel sheets warm.