When Facebook Memes Attack!

"The "Rules" : Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you. Copy and paste this and then go to the notes section of your profile."

1. My body's sleep schedule seems to run on a 25-hour rhythm. If I have no pressing reason to get up for an extended period of time, I'll be waking up at 9am, then 1pm, then 4pm, then eventually later, until it cycles all the way back.

2. I'm in the Army reserves. It's like no other job on this planet.

3. English is my second language.

4. I'm the only person I know that shaves with a straight razor. They've got a bitch of learning curve, but once you're through it, the result is phenomenal.

5. Apparently, I was "Most Promiscuous Brother" of AEPi's Ottawa chapter, 2007/2008. There was a vote. For once, I abstained.

6. Karaoke is my guilty pleasure.

7. I don't leave answering machine messages. There's no reason why, I just don't. I've probably left 5 in the last year.

8. I've had my M2 license since I was 16. If I don't do my final road test soon, it's going to expire.

9. I procrastinate. It's ridicu... fuck it.

10. I'm teaching myself - slowly - guitar.

11. Songs that recurringly get stuck in my head:
"Proud Mary," Ike and Tina Turner
"City Blues," Brian Wilson and Eric Clapton
"You Can't Hurry Love," either the Phil Collins cover or The Supremes' original.

12. Dvorjak and Dr Dre are next to each other in my iTunes. My taste is eclectic.

13. I've been to Israel 15 times, and I'm STILL eligible for Birthright.

14. I put all my private thoughts in a blog, but I don't share it with people I know in real life. Tried that once, it didn't go well; for their own good, nobody should ever know what I'm actually thinking.

15. When I have the time, I take hot showers that last easily 45 minutes, sometimes 60. I'm not even masturbating in there, just chillin'.

16. Questionable Content. Favourite web comic.

17. If I've got the time, the money, and the means, I have never turned down a road trip.

18. I've been to the fundamentalist Christian "Creation Museum" in Kentucky. Great shit.

19. I've been arrested.
Once.
While on a public bench.
For trespassing.

20. I love my bathrobe. It's big and purple, and I'm wearing it right now. I take it anywhere I'm staying for more than a night. I've driven across Tennessee in it, and I was the one driving.

21. I've elevated public nudity to high art, and I don't have to be drunk to streak.

22. My addiction, aside from nicotine, alcohol, and carnal sin, is raw oyster. Sit me down in front of them, and I'll eat oysters until you run out of shellfish, or I run out of money.

23. My cell phone and laptop don't get turned off.

24. I'm swearing off Hamilton Karaoke bars for at least two weeks. Those of you who were there know my reasons.

25. I am the least organized person you will ever meet. At my last place, all my floorspace went missing.

26. I'm terrible at math.

27. I'm invisible.

Mr Smith Goes to Washington

I just watched, for the fourth time since the sixth grade, Mr Smith goes to Washington. I keep forgetting, in the years' intervals between each time I see it, how powerful it really is. To some fans of the cinema classic, it's the feeling a feeling of patriotism and pride that makes this film such a stirring one. As a Canadian who is usually not moved much by nationalistic jingo, let alone that of another nation, it's something else in Frank Capra's masterpiece that literally brings me to tears at the climactic scene.... That doesn't happen very often.

Mr Smith goes to Washington is the story of Jefferson Smith, an idealistic man - he barely looks thirty - who is selected as an honourary appointment to the U.S. Senate to replace the sitting senator who had died the previous day. The men pulling the strings behind his appointment are businessmen, congressman, and fellow senators in the pocket of a corrupt James Taylor (not the singing one), a ruthless businessman who controlls half the commercial interests in Smith's home state. Smith, the state head of the Boy Rangers is the image of naïve idealism personified; he quotes Jefferson from memory, talks nonstop about the beauty of the American midwest; and gets lost - literally lost - in awe of his first sight of Washington, DC.

He's selected because he's so young and idealistic that he seems the least likely candidate to derail a Senate Deficiency Bill that includes the construction of a dam for the personal profit of Taylor. He's mentored by senator Joe Paine, who is from the same state and was a close friend of his father's before the elder Smith was murdered for daring to challenge a mining company's right to force homesteaders off of their land.

Back then, Joe Paine and Smith's father were a lawyer and newspaper editor who championed lost causes. Yet after seeing his friend killed, and eventually entering politics, Paine allowed himself to be bought out, and became part of Taylor's machine.

The conflict comes to a head when Smith, eager to accomplish something during his short term in the senate, proposes a national boys' camp for inner-city youth - on the exact site where the dam was meant to be built. When his bill comes into conflict with the proposed dam in the deficiency bill, Smith starts to ask questions and discovers the graft scheme.

When Smith refuses to be bought out, Paine disgraces him on the senate floor and accuses Smith of proposing his boys' camp bill for his own personal profit. The Taylor machine forge documents to substantiate the charge, and the process to expel Smith from the senate is started.

In an act of desperation, Smith seizes the floor and fillibusters the entire senate; as long as Smith does not sit down or cease talking, he cannot be forced to yield the floor of the senate. With Taylor's newspapers convincing their home state of Smith's corruption, Smith refuses to budge from the senate floor until his legs give out.

"You think I'm licked. You all think I'm licked. Well, I'm not licked. And I'm going to stay right here and fight for this lost cause. Even if the room gets filled with lies like these, and the Taylors and all their armies come marching into this place."




It really is as cheesy as it sounds. But this movie came out in 1939, before every storyline had become a trite cliche. It's not about patriotism, or idealism, or the sanctity of one nation's legislature; it's about the courage of the few men who face the impossible with no hope of success, who stand by their principles with every ounce of strength that they have. It's not just about politics or civil rights; it's about the things that matter to us most: freedom, love, and the chance to stand up for what matters to you most. It's about having something that you care so deeply and passionately about that no bribe, threat, or certainty of failure will stop you from doing everything you can to make things the way they should be.


...On a personal note, there's a quote that I keep with me in my wallet, right behind my driver's license. I printed out a card-sized version copy and had it laminated, and it's as close to a personal prayer as I imagine an atheist could come:

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt said that in 1910, in a speech in Paris. He said this just two years before the start of the most devestating war that his nation had ever seen, about the charge of good men to stand up for what they believe in.

It's the sentiment of what Teddy said that motivated the fictional Mr. Smith, and the standard to which I seek to hold myself. Nobody did anything - righted any great wrongs, made a name for themselves, found whatever it was in life that they were searching for - by sitting in the bleachers and making commentary. The kind of people that I would seek to emulate - the kind of man I want to be - are the ones who launch themselves headfirst into the arena, and fight for what you want until you've got nothing left. And if you get tossed back into the stands, you jump right back in with every ounce of tenacity you've got.



...I haven't always made the best choices in my life so far; a colossal understatement. But when I find myself at a real crossroads in my life, and I don't know what path to take, I take that little laminated quote out of my wallet and read it. I try to stay, above all, true to myself. No matter what happens.

Sins of the flesh (or, "How I invoked the wrath of God")

Tiring weekend, but I've earned this chance to brag.

A few weeks ago, I had a night of phenomenal, no-strings-attached sex with my friend Rachel in Toronto. It was in the basement guest room of family that I was visiting for the weekend, so we had to be careful and keep quiet.

Last Thursday, she came up to Ottawa to visit a girlfriend of hers for the weekend. And every night of her stay in the city, she ended ditching her friend to get laid. I was happy to oblige.

Before I get into the rest of the story, there are two things I need to explain to lay out the groundwork:

1) The house I'm renting with my friends at university is a dilapidated piece of shit. It's a rotting cliche of the life of a starving student.

2) I'm in an open relationship. Spare me the sanctimonious crap over the fact that I'm sleeping with other girls while the one I'm in love with is stuck two thousand miles away.

Back to it: We were waking up my housemates two, three times a night. Then again in the morning. And if you're doing your job right, this girl can get loud. By 3am of the second night of her visit, we'd already gotten two angry visits from my angry housemates, politely asking us to quiet the fuck down.

So we begin round 4. There was a thunderstorm outside, and it wasn't like we had anywhere better to be. By this point, I'm starting to get a feel for her particular sexual idiosyncrasies, and the sex is beyond good. My housemate had barely gotten back to bed by the time the entire house could hear her. So it goes.

This is round 4 for the evening, so it goes on for even longer than before. When we finally hit the ending bit, two things happen at once:

1. My housemate bangs on my bedroom door again, threatening me with an impromptu cold shower with the garden hose;

2. The eavestrough breaks free from the roof of my house, tearing the soffits off on the way down. (You know the part of the roof that overhangs past the side of your house? The soffits are the underside of that.)

So.

In conclusion:

I literally fucked a girl until the roof came down.

That is all.

On Open Relationships

To start, I'm in an open relationship. If you're in the intimate cadre of my 566 closest friends, you can see this on my Facebook profile. While most people tend not to bring up the details uncovered by their 3am Facebook-creeping adventures, those few who have brought up my less-than-traditional set-up have been mostly been guys, and the question often came with a twinge of envy.

The mythical "Open Relationship" seems, to most men my age, to combine the best of all worlds: the opportunity for intimacy with someone special, the opportunity to seek sexual gratification from other sources, and the opportunity to decide for yourself how best to strike that balance.

Let me tell you: it's not all it's cracked up to be.

And no, it's not because of jealousy. While we keep the details to ourselves, my girlfriend and I hide nothing from one another. She is, completely and unequivocally, my best friend. Sophie and I were friends long before we became involved, and I began the relationship on the sole condition that it could not, under any circumstances, come at the expense of our friendship.

If jealousy were to become an issue, I should expect it to be more from her side. While our relationship is explicitly open, Sophie does not sleep around. The same is not true for me; and while this is all kosher with Sophie, every time I have sex with another woman, it still feels like cheating.

It's not like I have any moral qualms about sex. As long as it's safe, and nobody is taken advantage of, I think it's a beautiful thing. There's a broad spectrum between the gratuitous fuck and the world-changing feeling of making love. If you're just counting sex, I've had my share. My fraternity's chapter saw fit to vote me the Most Promiscuous Brother of '07/'08, mostly owing to one high-profile (within fraternity circles, that is) threesome last February. I've slept with a few girls, yes.

I've only ever made love to one.

It's a term that sounds so trite until you experience it yourself. The feeling of caring more than about your own sexual pleasure, or even someone else's, but instead about letting down all of your defenses and giving yourself completely to another person. And when it's done, holding each other close and telling all of your secrets without saying a word. My MO with girls has always been "nice guys don't get laid." Sophie is the only person with whom I've ever let myself just be... myself.

I've seen her three times.

Enter the "distance factor," stage left. She lives in Alabama. Goes to school in Boston. After meeting in Toronto over four years ago, we kept in touch over MSN and near-daily phone conversations. The friendship began to take on more intimate overtones a year or two ago, and every once in a while, we would make plans to visit one another, only to see those plans fall through. We would always put the romantic aspect of our friendship on hold whenever one of us was in a relationship with someone back home.

But she was privy to the triumphs and anxieties, the trials and tribulations of every romantic involvement I ever had. We saw one another through more then our fair share of respective first-date jitters, and break-up train wrecks. But there came a point last February when it dawned on me who it was that I wanted to be with.

When reading week started (reading week is the Canadian version of March Break, only - you know - in February), I packed up my bags and set off with my best friend on the long overnight drive to Boston.

Before making the trip, I had ended a no-strings-attached thing I had with a friend I'd been having sex with back home, just in case things got serious with Sophie.

I was only there for one night, but it was easily the best night of my life. She seemed to want - for some unbelievable reason - for her first time to be with me. That may not count for much to some people, but that was a lot of pressure for me. I mean, I'd been the first for a girl before, but never with someone I really, truly cared about. And yet, it was a first for me too. I made love for the first time, and got hooked.

The next month, she came up to Ottawa for a week for her March break. It stands out as probably the best week I ever had. I skipped all of my classes - studious guy that I am - and practically barricaded myself in the room with her. We only had the week together, and we were going to make the most of it. My roommate hated me.

When the week was over, it was unclear when we would see each other again. I don't know how we came to it, but we made the decision that an open relationship was best for us, because we had so little opportunity to be together.

Yet sex had made its inevitable impact on us. Where once we would tell each other everything, I found myself opening up to her less. Despite the open status of our relationship, every time I slept with another woman, it felt, on an intuitive level, like a betrayal not only of her, but of myself.

So I began to spare her the details. Where once I would tell her everything that was going on in my life, now it felt wierd. How could I tell her what another woman was doing with me, while the distance that separated us kept her from doing the same?

Fast forward to two weeks ago.

I had sex with Rachel. She is a close friend of mine, and goes to the same university as me. It wasn't quite planned: it just sort of happened. She's spending the summer in Toronto, and I was there for the weekend. We met up for drinks, and one thing led to another, which led to my place. And now things are a mess.

Because even though it wasn't the same as what I have with Sophie, it was, inexorably, more than just a fuck. And striking that balance between intimacy and sex in my relationship with Sophie became a lot more complicated. Even though I'm not in love with Rachel, the sex was intimate. Having "just sex" with someone hadn't really caused any problems with respect to the open relationship. But what do I do when it's not just sex?

Rachel is coming up to Ottawa for the weekend to see me. She knows about my relationship with Sophie, and she surely understands that nothing serious will happen between the two of us. But I'm worried about whether or not I can keep this from getting unmanageably wierd. Rachel's my friend, and I don't want her to feel rejected. But I love Sophie, and need to find a way to make sure not to become romantically intimate with someone else.

That would be something that she could not forgive.



For all you guys who wish you were in my shoes, and love the idea of being able to fuck whoever you want while still being in a relationship, let me pitch in my two cents: be careful what you wish for. It might just come true.