I stopped inviting people over in August. The last time I had friends here I had the worst seizure that I’ve had since the onset of my curse. I’ve always loved baking and cooking, but it’s always been a bit of a nerve-wracking experience for me. I’d say half the time, I discover the next day that I forgot to serve a course or an important condiment. I’ve decided to continue not to host a meal until after my heart tests at the end of January. I’ve also cut down on my walks with my friends. Whenever they walk the Ricki Ave. trail, I don’t go.
Also, its Christmas. There was no Christmas most of my life with the Tyrells. Don would go to be with Connie, his wife, a paraplegic in a care home, and Rita, his girlfriend and Connie’s nurse. Being in that environment, rich with the aroma of sterility and linoleum and full of people without boundaries, wasn’t my idea of a place to spend Christmas. So, I stayed home alone.
When I got older and made friends, they’d often invite me to be part of their Christmas celebrations. I quickly learned to always say that I had other plans, and that was to stay home. I’d get an intense ‘I don’t belong here’ feeling’ every time and not belonging was like life with the Tyrells and I’d had enough of that.
I credit that sorry story of childhood isolation for my capacity to enjoy solitude. I’m getting quite a lot of it lately. I’m looking forward to a couple of days with Paula starting tomorrow.
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To distance myself from the Tyrells, I started sleeping on a hide-a-bed in our wreck room in the basement. It had a fireplace. That’s where my love of fire was born. It also had quite a large bookcase full of books. I got started reading, Balzac, Eugene Field, Charles Dickens, a large library of classics in an edited and illustrated form, and many other books I cannot remember.
I loved Charles Dickens stories, but what hit me hard was a pair of books about war. One was, Let’s Do Better by Monroe Leaf. (I fucking cannot believe that title came to mind as I prepared to explain that I’d forgotten the title!) It is a child-like cartoon story of war that, in the end, has the planet devoid of life. Then there was a hardback book called Herbie. It was a collection of stories about Herbie, a soldier in the second world war.
That story and those cartoons burned the horror of war into my young impressionable mind. Later, when I was discovering that I was gay, the one benefit was an excuse to avoid conscription, should it ever come. War makes me despair about our species. As does poverty, the lack of empathy in capitalism, and what we have done to nature, animals, our air and our oceans. And my anger and disgust has become more intense since the onset of my broken brain.
Last night I watched The Book Thief on Prime. It’s set in the war and is emotionally wrenching. I was a wreck for many minutes at the end. I was in deep despair because at the end of the movie, a boy who is prominent and adorable in the film, is killed by a bomb. And I just fell apart. I was deeply, deeply disturbed. The books came to mind and made it all worse.
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Tears aside, we had a nice day. The cats slept all day. Sheba and I walked twice when it wasn’t raining, but last night was heavy rainfall and gusty winds. The was very loud on the roof, and I love it. There were no bangs of cones and branches landing on the roof. It’s my favourite way to go to sleep, hearing the weather on the roof.
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Today will be busy. I’ve cooking to do, and I saw Dr Shoja this morning. It’s now 12:30 and I need a nap.
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