Dear Friends

I have been a bad man.
I have not written.
I have not called.
Following is a list of reasons that may help clarify some of the factors in my lack of attentiveness.
1. That's me at the top of a "ride" at the Calgary Stampede. It cost an additional 35 dollars to "ride" this contraption above and beyond the 12 bucks it cost me to walk through a turn-style and have some 14 year old with acne and chin pubes say HOWDY to me. The ride pictured here was a very, very long piece of metal with 2 chairs on each end. After getting belted in it would circle slowly to the top, where it came to a dead stop and loaded people on the exact opposite end. Once they were on the entire very, very long piece of metal would swing in a perfect circle, from ground to sky. The seats that you sat on also spun, right the fuck upside down.
I hated it.
Notice how my arms are not outstretched trying to add some more thrill to the ride, but rather clutching my chest and hoping the gravity doesn't force out the contents of my already terrified bowels.
The nausea wore off by the next morning. The emotional damage is still as apparent a full 2.5 weeks later.
Aside from trying to resocialize myself after the trauma, I have battled other perils that I feel are worthy of some explanation.
The 2006 Calgary Stampede just ended on Sunday.
We won a lot of free tickets.
Every thumb sucking dork with a side part and a wine tipped cigar was walking around in full cowboy gear.
It killed something.
And that something was 31 years of masterbatory fantasy so refined that I had it down to a fucking art.
Now I close my eyes to slip (and slide) off to la-la land and Bucky is coming at me with a crooked smile and a tattoo on his bicept that says 'Made in Canada'.
I'm still mourning that loss.
Also, I am a pet owner now.
Pictured here is one of my fish. He is a tropical Oscar.
He passed in the winter time. My boyfriend scooped him up and dropped his body into a plastic beer cup well we contemplated funeral arrangements. Unfortunately, the funeral planning was during dinner time, and I could not for the life of me manage to choke down my meal with the cold dead eyes of my beloved fish staring at me through the cup. So, I stomped my feet and whined and demanded that my boyfriend put the fish on the patio until I was done my Mac & Cheese.
He did.
And we forgot the fish there for a couple of days. He froze. Solid.
Adter that we found the blackest garbage bag we could find, in honour of the colour of loss, and we threw the icey casket in there, with some coffee grinds and a coffee crisp wrapper.
His brother made it through the winter. The living Oscar is now three times the size of that damn cup, and wants to be fed everytime I walk into the room.
I have begged my pooh pooh bear to just stop feeding it, but he feels guilty, and keeps dropping fish flakes in the tank.
I have contemplated throwing it on the floor one morning before work and pretending it jumped out of the tank while we were earning money for its 'TetraCichlid Jumbo Carnivore Sticks.'
I'd get caught, I always do.
Instead, I spend my nights trying to love the Oscar, whose name, subsequently, is Oscar. Funny, if you called your dog, 'Dog' people would know you didn't give a shit about the thing.
I am trying to become a responsible pet owner. But I just hate the damn thing.
Forgive me.
I am nothing more than a work in progress, and lately, it's taken up a whole shitload of my time.
I love you all.
Each
and
every
one.