July 2012 Monthly Entry
A lot has happened so this’ll be a long monthly entry… which they usually are, LOL!
After a surprisingly wet and dreary June, July has finally showcased the summer season in the Lower Mainland. It’s pretty hot but we’ve experienced a little hotter than this. It’s my last month at the complex I’ve been managing and come August 1st I will be back cleaning my usual buildings after over 3 months of absence. Turns out the guy they hired to be the new manager was the ex-manager of a building I once did almost 2 years ago! I would redirect you guys to a couple of 2010 entries on what happened but that was during the days of blogging on Yahoo. Hard to say how long the guy will last because he can rule the place with an iron fist. He has a big temper and takes Strata by-laws to the letter. I’m guessing he was probably the only person they could get for the job. I’m training him next week and then the week after. Seems strange how he had to train me at his building almost 2 years ago LOL!
A heads up that Vancouver Pride is August 3-5 this year. I don’t know all the events (so the schedule I'm giving is tenative and probably not accurate) but I plan to go to the Vancouver Men in Leather social the Friday night at Numbers @ 9pm, Saturday I’m at my folks, Sunday I may be in the parade with the Knights of Malta and we’re basically behind the Dykes on Bikes at the front. Later that day I may go to Thickset, the bear dance party. I’ll write about the weekend later.
June 22 was moving day and after my shift and the driver’s exam, my friend Peter drove me to the new townhouse in Port Coquitlam. While it was kind of nice with hardwood floors all over the place and was generally overall a much nicer place, the house was overwhelmingly smaller! I mean, it’s almost half the space of our previous slum house! Our bedrooms are especially small - both Calvin’s and mine. My queen size bed takes up over half the space of my room. I had to eventually put my chest of drawers in the closet to allow for room to move around. The frog boxes that we rented were all over the place and any box that had my name labeled on it went into my bedroom despite the fact I had no room to store it. It was raining a bit that day and the move didn’t end until around 10pm and they started around 8:30am. They made two trips to and from Burnaby and also stopped at Calvin’s downstairs suite in Pitt Meadows (just east of Port Coquitlam) to pick up his stuff but it was very little. The final bill: $2210.58. Because of the new financial arrangement, I had to pay $736.86 while Calvin and David pay the same amount too. I put it on my Visa and later, paid off my amount but sacrificed my paycheque to do it. David and Calvin will slowly pay off their amounts and incur the interest charges. We were all obviously stressed out from the move that night. But for some reason, David was being really nasty toward me and this would continue for a week. He was just really condescending, cold, and impatient. I found that he couldn’t remember where he packed his pills and went over a week without them. But one time I questioned him outright, “Just what the hell is your problem?” and he answered, “You said we needed to downsize, well, you got what you wanted!” What he means by that statement is that around last year I suggested to David that the next time we move - as just the two of us that we live in a cheaper, though smaller place so it can be financially easy on us. After David and slave James broke up earlier this year, he talked to me privately one night in my media room that he agreed with my suggestion because he wanted to move this year. It was very likely that Wendy, our slumlord was going to once again increase the rent come this September. That was all fine and dandy until Calvin came into the picture. I would assume that once again we are having a household of three so it meant having a sufficiently large house and slightly more rent. David finds this townhouse that is $5 more a month in rent than our slum house but is a lot smaller space-wise. It’s downsizing - but in the wrong way. This house was meant to benefit Calvin because of the nature of his job and living with us where we were before would make getting to and from work difficult. In return, my work commute time has doubled and I must take an extra bus. I’ll admit in defense of this house that we have power in all outlets, is freshly painted, there are no leaks, there are screens on the windows (perfect for this summer weather and no bugs fly in), an internal dishwasher, washer and dryer, garburator (garbage disposal unit), a refrigerator, etc. things that our slum house lacked or we no longer have to deal with. David plans to sell our previous washer and dryer that we had to buy in December 2009 and the external dishwasher that we’ve had for over 5 years. We will still keep our refrigerator and freezer as we need the extra space. We rented 80 frog boxes and we had just over a week after our move to empty every single one of them and prepare them for pickup. That’s easier said than done in this new place. While I had problems given the lack of space and furniture to hold my things, David had it even worse given his thousands of books. But all three of us managed to get everything out and ended that form of post-moving stress.
Through most of that Saturday and also Sunday morning, Peter and I went back to the slum house in Burnaby to salvage some of my things that were left behind. I was shocked to see how much David abandoned! While I got all of my stuff to transport in Peter’s car and left really little junk, I had the feeling David scrambled on moving day that he threw all his possessions on one side of his room and had the movers take the furniture mainly. He had a rented van and mainly salvaged his things as best he could by himself. He didn’t want my help and wanted me to grab my things mainly. Still, I took the time to grab as many things of his as I could. I grabbed his collection of sex toys and leather items and even his huge collection of Drummer magazines! He left behind his entire LP collection in the living room and some clothes in his room and I just couldn’t salvage it. I also found out in our now-former roommate Pete’s room that Pete did manage to take the boxspring and mattress we let him have but he didn’t take any of the other furniture which was weird. His room was a disaster area but it was obvious he wouldn’t clean it. I spent some time cleaning the main floor of the house on Saturday afternoon. I first threw out some garbage and borrowed the use of Peter’s vacuum to clean the floors. It was a pretty impressive vacuum I might add! My media room carpet was very dusty but after finishing, the room looked almost like new. I disinfected the bathroom and kitchen counters and then mopped both floors with a water, soap, and bleach mix. The bathroom floor badly smelled of rancid urine when I mopped it, the vast majority coming from Pete as he had a habit of pissing with the toilet seat up and hardly cleaning anything that sprinkled on the floor. I had to add more chemical to kill the odor. While we were abandoning the house still in shambles, it did look much better after some cleaning. David didn’t think it was necessary given that he wanted to leave the house as it was for our bitch of a slumlord to deal with but before Peter picked me up, he saw it and was pretty impressed. Sunday we grabbed the last of our stuff that we could. David simply locked up the house and left the keys around the front door. His original plan was to mail a responding letter to the slumlord after she sent a letter about the nasty phone call she placed around last month and he would also include the keys. His reply was meant to mock her as she made some bad spelling mistakes in the letter, that she failed in her duties as a landlord to fix things, her claims of being a Christian but has committed very un-Christian behaviour (he planned to quote from the New Testament to show her the error of her ways), and was clearly a racist. Instead, David felt that just having her use our security deposit to clean the house and any other extra expenses she incurs is punishment enough. We feel really bad for the future tenants who are now living in that house. They have no idea of the leaks, the rodents that can enter inside the walls from outside the house, the third floor power outlets having no power and the plugs are the old two-pronged type, the asbestos, and just generally how bad and barely habitable that house is. And of course, they will learn very quickly that their slumlord is very nasty and just wants to live off their rent and not fix the problems. That became clearer after David served her our 30 days notice and the way she scrambled to get new tenants.
Things were pretty bad the same first weekend of the move with David’s attitude and this habit of separating our things. He has separated our VHS/DVD collection for some reason, and is more content in making sure that our things don’t mix together unlike in the past. I don’t know the reason why. I was really upset that weekend that I talked to my folks about the move and David really mistreating me when I visited them on Sunday after Peter was done helping. I admitted that I was expressing doubts of living with him and it wouldn’t be impossible that I would have to move back with them after all these years. Of course, my parents would jump at the opportunity for me to come back to them. As for my things, they said I can store a lot of my stuff with them and my father will drive out to Port Coquitlam to pick it up when I’m ready. It would certainly save on storage costs. So I let David know that my folks will store some of my things in the attic and garage to save on room which he was happy with. I spent the week putting together things that were not controversial to them or will get me in trouble (no bear porn or whatever LOL!). Just some clothes, tapes, all my action figures - both boxed and unboxed, mementos, magazines, stuffed toys, boxes, etc. My father drove me back home on the following Saturday and I loaded it up in the van. There is still one last load that I need to prepare and will let him know when it will be ready in the future.
As I was weighing my future options of staying with David and Calvin, or going back to my folks, or even going out on my own, a few weekends ago the option to go back to my folks kind of died. Before my father was going to drop me off at home and collect some of my things, they spent an hour talking to me about if I did choose to move back, that I would lead a ”holy life”. What this obviously means is: I have to be celibate, have no more associations with the gay community, basically drop all my friends and not have much communication with them, etc. They also made it clear to me that choosing to live with them is the equivalent of gaining salvation and continuing to live with David or on my own, living my own life is the equivalent of losing salvation. In over 10 years of my folks and I dealing with my being gay, I’ve heard a lot of this before though compared to back then, this didn’t effect me emotionally as much. I always viewed my being gay as the “elephant in the room” in my family. Most times, it isn’t talked about but on occasion it gets brought up. In this situation, it killed going back to my folks as a backup plan. I was hoping to meet them halfway - that I would still have associations with the community and the groups I’m with but I'm allowed to "bring it home" with me. So I can understand not having a friend over or hosting one who visits from out-of-town but I can still go and see them. But no, even that isn’t open to me because that would be accepting my being gay which to them, is a sin. In all these years, nothing much has changed. I honestly don’t know what kind of Christian they think I am or if I truly am one in their opinion. We also talked about David and his intention of my going to school. He wanted to talk to them for years in co-financing my education but they always refused. In all fairness, my folks have never paid for my siblings’ education but David and I were not asking to pay for tuition. If I was going to go to Trinity Western University which they live a hell of a lot closer than where I live, David would ask that I live with them so I would have a place to sleep, eat, and study. David would subsidize my textbooks and any miscellaneous costs. I can always go and visit him on weekends. It sounded like a fair idea but again, the fact I am not “repenting” in any of this means that my folks won’t support my going to school because I live with David and so forth. Even then, my folks say that I should be more concerned about my salvation than going to school. You heard that right: getting an education - even at a Christian university is not as important than a professed gay Christian to repent and be forced to work in a job that doesn’t pay a living wage. My older siblings make a living wage because they went to school, so why can’t I? Oh yes, because I’m not straight and making a gay person’s life more difficult is a form of tough love. I find this funny given that those within the ex-gay camp who counsel Christian parents of gay kids - will answer the question of supporting their gay child’s education, would generally say they SHOULD support their child as their education has nothing to do with their being gay! I guess my folks are ignorant on that part. I love my parents very much, they are like my best friends and I know they want what they think is best for me. While I have always been thankful and blessed to have them as my parents and for all the support they have given me in other areas of my life, I just can’t understand why they won’t support me in this one. I'm not denying that they should take their faith seriously, as I also take mine too, but they shouldn't view me as the black sheep. I'm envious of my friends who have Christian parents who accept them or at least are pretty supportive of them. I don't think my parents will ever go that far so my being gay will always be a stain on my soul in their view. The reason this has all reared its ugly head had to do with the testimony of Angelica Zambrano called "Prepare to meet your God", an Ecuadorian girl who was dead for 23 hours and claimed she experienced Heaven and Hell. She makes no mention of gay people but she emphasizes that there are people who THINK they are going to Heaven, but have actually been condemned to Hell - including Pope John Paul II! My mom listened to her testimony and while she doesn't fully agree with it, she does agree that we should take things more seriously in our lives. There is no doubt in our minds that many of those who profess to be "Christian" will not make it to Heaven. Christ affirms this in the gospels. But my mom thinks I'm not taking God seriously enough and is now worried that the likelihood of MY going to Hell is becoming more real. Obviously, for any religious parent the salvation of their child is paramount even if it meant giving up their lives to save their child's soul! But I DO take God seriously. I try to pray and read my Bible and consistently think about my faith a lot. I try to be a good and loving person but I am also human and make a lot of mistakes. I admit that I should go back to attending church regularly as I used to. I will never be perfect or measure up to my parents... I am just too different from them despite us believing the same major doctrines of the faith. Looks like my future exit strategy is not going back to them. I either have to go on my own or find a good friend to stay with if the worst case scenario happens between David and me.
I questioned David Sunday night when we were playing around in my bedroom about the landline phone which had a voicemail recording mentioning only him and Calvin. Of course, I was very offended and asked David what the hell was going on. He said that since I was not on the lease and that the landlord doesn’t know of my living with them, that his finding out would mean a change to the lease and penalties would apply. I did not ask why I wasn’t on the lease because I basically knew the answer: David didn’t think I’d live with him at the time it was signed by him and Calvin. With what was happening between us (described in last month’s entry), he expressed doubts or purposely tried to not have me live here. I can’t say. But it does look very suspicious that in the last couple of houses we moved into, I was always on the lease and now, I’m not on this one. The always contentious issue around money got him angry too as I still hate the new financial arrangement. I said that he changed it on the insistence of Calvin who didn’t want me subsidized. David claimed it had to do with what he told Kevin and me before: that when he retired, he could no longer afford us which is why we needed to make living wages. There are three major problems with this: David retired around 3 years earlier than expected (though it was understandable) and even turned down a plea from his employer to return to work a while ago, Kevin died prematurely, and these combined reasons meant I had to keep working at my job as we couldn’t afford my going to school and so forth. But then I asked David what the financial arrangement between him and Calvin was. His reply, “I won’t answer that” in which I raised my eyebrows at him and gave a small smirk. He has basically confirmed my suspicions because he is in the current process of paying down the moving debt with Calvin. He is trying to give me $100 a week to put toward the credit card charge and I split his and Calvin’s into two ($736.86 each). The first week he says to put it on Calvin’s debt. The second week he then says it didn’t matter and to just put it on the debt in general so I decided to knock off a $100 on his debt (leaving each with $636.86). That was how my suspicion began on what their financial arrangement was. David left my bedroom just coldly saying good night.
After what happened that night, Calvin eventually came home from a Dungeons & Dragons session. I managed to talk to him privately and admitted to him why David and I were not on the best of terms. I talked about the financial arrangement and told him about how the concept of “subsidy” worked. I illustrated to him what it would mean if he were a part of the old system. I think he understood that the concept makes sense considering we are a household and we support each other. If we were roommates of three, then paying one-third the rent and utilities and supporting our own selves DOES make sense. I let him know why I was questioning the financial arrangement between him and David but admitted that I won’t force that info out of him. After some talking, he actually admitted to me that he was thinking of leaving the household. He wouldn’t elaborate on what happened, though I suspected something happened between them last week. Trying to be supportive, I again reminded Calvin that I wish the David I first met until the day Kevin died was still there but that David is no more. All of us would get along so much better with him before he slowly changed. Before continuing, David came downstairs which ended the conversation. Calvin went up to talk to him about his day and it seemed to calm David down as we began talking again.
David had his 64th Birthday on Tuesday. Either than friends on his Facebook page wishing him a Happy Birthday, I was the first person to acknowledge it before I went to work in the morning. I was also the first and (currently) only person to get him a birthday card though I’ve yet to get him a gift. Instead, I went down to the nearby Coopers Foods at sunset and bought a small tub of Ben & Jerry’s “Cherry Garcia” ice cream. I’ve wanted to try this one for years but given how expensive it is, I kept withholding it. It seemed like the most appropriate time given there wasn’t much of a restaurant to eat at that night and it looked like something David would enjoy and was allowed to indulge in. At home I prepared a couple bowls of ice cream and surprised him in his room by handing him his card and the bowl of ice cream. He was very touched that later that night, he messaged me downstairs, thanking me for the ice cream and card. I said that Calvin could have a bowl before going to work, which he did later. The ice cream was pretty good - vanilla/cherry flavoured ice cream with some cherries in it plus chunks of fudge too. Sunday morning, David took his friend Cluff from Victoria and myself to our favourite brunch at the Executive Hotel & Conference Centre Burnaby to celebrate his birthday properly.
As some of you know, besides the move on June 22 I also had my Novice driver’s exam. I left work early and had BestWay give me a pre-test practice session so I can work on my skills and also use the car for the exam. It was raining that day… just what I needed. My instructor, one of my favourites considering I had a different instructor each session, happened to be the one reviewing things with me so we did some driving and tweaking my skills. We went to the licensing office near Brentwood in Burnaby (walking distance from where I work) and paid my $35 fee. Peter was waiting outside for me and when my examiner came, a kind of pudgy woman who had a strict attitude, Peter thought “Oh shit! He’s going to fail…” after we emerged from the office. I did the pre-startup test making sure the turn signals worked, hazard lights, brake lights, low beams, high beams, wipers, brakes, emergency brake, and using my hand signals. She got into the car and explained to me the process. The test is about 30 minutes long, that she would not trick me into doing something, and that she cannot give me answers if I forgot how to do something. Everything passed with flying colours… until less than 3 minutes of pulling out of the parking lot and about to enter my first major intersection. I make a right turn onto this street and instinctively think I should be on the right side but it turns out you have to be in the middle of the street. There weren’t any lane markings on the concrete until you drive further up and as far as I know, nothing indicated that I took a wrong action given the circumstances. The examiner raised her voice wondering what I was doing and to go into the middle lane as the right lane is for a right turn only at the intersection. I apologized and admitted that when I was practicing; my instructor pointed this out to me at this same street. I thought I was going to automatically fail right there but thankfully, she didn’t do that. We continued driving around the neighbourhood and since BestWay had me practice there beforehand, I basically knew what to expect though we did go into different parts of the residential area. I did parallel parking and while I was a little bit far from the curb, I basically passed it because I was paying attention with my surroundings. I also did parking uphill with a curb and since I knew to have my wheels face to the left, I passed that one too. A major hurdle happened when I was on Hastings Street and I was required to make a left turn at an intersection. It was rush hour and the opposite side of oncoming traffic pilled up on my left side, which meant that the traffic behind them waited before the intersection, leaving it clear even though it was a green light. I didn’t know what to do and verbally admitted to my examiner that I’ve never been in this situation before. My wheels were still straight and not pointing left (which I would have got demerits for since you cannot point your wheels left, waiting for the left turn) and I could tell she was waiting to see what I would do. I said I didn’t feel comfortable making the turn and would wait instead. The light eventually turned yellow and the oncoming cars came to a stop before the intersection so I was able to complete my left turn. We did some pulling-into-the-curb type parking including properly opening the door and leaving the vehicle, hazard perception (in which you have to point out possible hazards while the car is parked and if you miss any then you get a demerit - I think I got the majority of them right), stopping at stop signs, 2 and 4-way stops, speed bumps, reversing, shoulder checking, 30 km/h school and playground zones, lane changing, etc. The final thing was reverse parking into a stall when we got back to the licensing branch. Like parallel parking, I wasn’t very successful and spot on but still, I passed mainly because I was careful and checking all over the place. I shut the car off and the examiner said I passed the exam! My heart leapt with joy! She pointed out what I needed to work on and during what happened at Hastings Street, I basically did the right thing by waiting at the light (good thing because I was tempted to make the left turn when the oncoming cars stopped before the intersection while the light was green - that could have been an automatic fail as the cars didn’t stop for long!). So we walked back to the office entrance and Peter who was waiting outside his car called out and asked if I passed. I gave him a thumb-up and nod as I was about to walk inside (LOL!). My instructor was proud of me and had a look at my test sheet but the young lady who was processing my information and took my $75 license fee was one of my (now-former) neighbours! We got to talking about the house we were moving from and how much her family hated our slumlord when she lived there in the past! I told her all the problems with the house and all the crap we put up from the slumlord and she was both surprised and not too surprised. I obviously couldn’t stay long but I thanked her for everything and that they were good neighbours in the 2.5 years we were there. I had my picture taken, had my interim license printed out for me, and received my green “N” sign (required displaying whenever I drive) before we left. Peter was waiting outside and had a friendly chat with my teacher. I thanked him one last time and said when I’m ready to get my full license (which I have to wait around a couple of years to even begin booking) that I’d give BestWay a call again. Peter then drove me all the way to the new house. On the way I called my parents and told them the good news and texted my younger sister which both congratulated me back.
A couple Saturdays ago David, Calvin, and I attended the VASM BBQ at Master Chuk's and his partner Ken's place in Maple Ridge. About 15 in all were there. Freddie and I took pictures of the BBQ which was pretty fun. It was bring your own meat and drinks (bummer...). Calvin prepared some shish-kabobs with chicken, onion, and peppers with a dash of rosemary and I think sage. It was mainly socializing with friends and spent some time with George Cameron or MasterG as he prefers to be called, one of my Leatherdaddies. Master Chuk was giving away his collection of T-shirts. Sine I came a late from my folks that day, I missed out on getting any good ones. David took at least a few of them with one of them being sexually explict - definitely not suitable in public settings. There were penis-cookies with your choice of vanilla or chocolate and some cake since it was Freddie's birthday. David, Calvin, and I left about 6:30pm only to find that Master Chuk started selling some of his SM gear after we were gone. I was pretty choked that he waited until the last minute to do it.
Due to the move, I haven’t done much media-wise either than watch a DVD-R copy of Justice League: The New Frontier that I’ve had lying around for God-knows-how-long. It was a pretty good movie, taking place before the modern Justice League from what I could gather from the story. Nothing new has happened with Star Trek TNG and I’m just wondering how the hell I’m going to complete Season 4 without the missing episodes. I’ve played very little of Punch Out!! and it’ll be a while to play more because we changed the media set up and David says we need to have my TV wall mounted. I’ve played a bit of The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road and I’m enjoying it.
Last Movie: The Avengers 3D (Theatrical), Justice League: The New Frontier (DVD)
Last Book: What Have They Done with Jesus?
Last Game: Mega Man: Powered Up (PSP)
Current Book: Beyond Opinion
Current Games: Punch Out!! (Wii) & The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (DS)