bonjour, je m'appelle i don't know

may 31, 2009. my first night in vancouver.

“Rugged Fox is on life support,” I told my good friend Amy yesterday over spiced walnuts and non-fat cappuccinos.

“It is atrocious. For months now he has been lying in a fluorescent-lit hospital room with parched lips and only female nurses attending him.”

I paused, dramatically, and took a sip from my coffee. Wiping the foam from my lips, I continued, “I fear that if I don’t write something witty and quick I might… Meryl Streep I can’t believe I’m actually saying this… I might lose him.”

Amy reached out her hand and put it over mine. “Have another spiced walnut,” she said, “it will make you feel better.”

It is true, for months now I have been suffering from a serious case of writer’s block. Constipated, I have tried everything in my power to unblock myself but nothing has seemed to work. Although you can’t see me right now, you must trust that I sit behind this laptop with cramped shoulders and an overwhelming fear I might watch another day go by without any words to show for it.

Like any attractive struggling writer, I have managed to come up with a myriad of excuses to account for my artistic absence. I have listed the top three reasons below:

#1 SGBS (Sad Gay Bitch Syndrome)

There is no question I have fallen prey, yet again, to this nasty Seasonal Affective Disorder. I swear to Meryl I might as well take this website down for the six months this city is cast in grey.  Like the Dementors in Harry Potter, the winter in Vancouver sucks the life right out of me; it is hard to be fabulous when you can barely muster enough energy to get dressed in the morning.

#2 The Restaurant

I made the official decision two weeks ago that I would not use my job as an excuse to miss out on the rest of my life. The transition from serving to managing is similar to that of being a casual drinker who progresses in to a heavy alcoholic. One week you are working twenty hours, and the next you are logging sixty.

#3 Netflix

For $7.99 a month, this darn website has quickly become the cheapest and most dangerous addiction in my life. I might as well have started shooting meth the second I pressed on the play on the first episode of Breaking Bad. 5 and ½ back-to-back seasons later I kid you not my apartment looked like a scene from Trainspotting. The garbage reeked; the sink had caved in under the dishes; and the only piece of edible food in my fridge was a tiny green container of sweet-and-sour sauce from McDonald’s.

Although all these factors have kept Rugged Fox’s word count at zero, it didn’t occur to me until last Friday that that they are merely symptoms of a much graver root cause. I am having an identity crisis. All these years my life has been 90210 and now it is suddenly 24601. Jean Valjean be damned, I don’t have the slightest clue who I am anymore.

The Rugged Fox of years past would not put nearly this much effort in to thinking. He would zip up his cowboy boots, throw Pacey around his shoulder and chase happy hour drink specials across the city. Now, my cowboy boots are dead (both heels snapped in a dramatic strutting accident), Pacey has been retired (my doctor said he was giving me lower back problems) and apart from two profiles on Manhunt and Fred2Fred which I cannot seem to delete, my trampy online presence is gone.

I don’t know how better to say this but the entire situation is totes tradg.

Last fall, I could not bare the sight of my own closet. In two months, it had become a graveyard of all the fashionable pants, cardigans and summer v-necks that my body used to call home. Like Blanche Dubois, I would scream and weep each week that I tried to fit in to my supermodel Club Monaco cerulean blue jeans. With blood-shot eyes and snot pouring out of my nose, I rolled around on my hardwood floors, the waist of the pants lodged half-way up my thighs, screaming “You are dead to me skinny jeans!” Dead to me!”

In the history book that is my life, 2012 will be the year filed under the chapter cleverly-titled “Death of a Gay Man.” Without thinking twice, I stripped the carpet up from underneath me and knocked my life down one bottle of red wine at a time. I changed jobs and cheers-ed some of my best friends goodbye. It is hard to write someone up and then invite them to go for drinks after. I changed my address and moved nine stories closer to the sky. I got a boyfriend and then after one embarrassing late-night and hangover too many, woke up alone. I did not want to write, because I was afraid of the person I had become.

The good news is that 2013 is all about new clothes, new friends, and a new me. After scraping through the trenches at work, I am finally becoming more comfortable and confident with my position. Although it is difficult given my schedule, I have realized that it is not impossible to meet new people. At Christmas, I bought a new bag to replace Pacey. His name is Hunter and he is from Germany; he is beautiful. In terms of relationships and body image, that part of my life, as always, still needs work. You will be happy to know that I have given up chicken parm and started drinking skim milk at dinner instead of wine.

Who knows? Maybe Rugged Fox is just starting to grow up and this is what it feels like to be an adult. For the first time in a while I can genuinely say I am excited for what happens next.   

 
Thank you to Tegan and Sara and Stephen Schwartz for helping me to write this post. Also, thank you Hunter Parrish for being so bloody good looking.

bitter, sweet and juicy

What a treat it is to be back! It is not even 9:00am on a Sunday morning and after weeks months I have finally found some quiet non-hungover time to sit down and write. Outside my window, the clouds have settled low over the ocean and the rain is falling in to snow. I must apologize for my extended absence. From what I have heard, Rugged Fox withdrawal is worse than coming down from cocaine, heroine and methamphetamine – at the same time.

So where have I been you ask? The answer is quite simple: work. After some post-Glitter-Mariah-Carey-mental-health drama went down, I was thrust in to the daytime “office manager” role at the restaurant. With the busy Christmas season fast-approaching, I went from managing the floor to managing an inbox. This new position has not only taken a toll on my waistline but aslo my writing. After replying to emails non-stop for 60 hours a week, I have a hard time typing any sentence that is not business-related.

Switching paragraphs, these past couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of heavy thinking in the bath tub about what I should write about. There is so much to report I could present you with a wine list of stories to choose from. But why settle on one bottle, when I can pour you a taster of each one? Below I have lined up a series of 2 ounce pours for you to wet your palette with.

REDS

“Hello my name is hot mess” cabernet-petit verdot, 2011.
Tasting notes: harsh tannins, burning alcohol, 48-hour finish.

I know I said I was going to be all Power of Now post break-up; but that balanced lifestyle lasted about ten minutes before I was losing my balance at the gay bar down the street. Seeing as how I have been so busy at work, I didn’t have time to check in to the Heartbreak Hotel for 3+ years like I usually prefer to do. So I had to get her all done in one Friday night, which I did. One pretentious outfit, three bottles of wine and I successfully managed to make-out with two boys and write off the rest of my weekend.

this was the first and last time i was ever on match.com

“Sometimes a bitch has just got to get fat,” petite-syrah, 2007.
Pairs well with: frozen pizza, fast food, and chicken parmesan (no veg sub pasta).

There is a search warrant out right now for my metabolism. I have looked everywhere and I still can’t find it! This time last year, I was busting out the 20lb weights at the gym and tracking the circumference of my biceps over Twitter. Now I am dodging cameras and running out of breath every time I take the elevator up and down twelve floors. Yesterday at Winners I almost broke the zipper on a pair of size-28 CK’s after I refused to believe I couldn’t fit in them. I ended up buying a pair of size-32 pants and called the Crisis Centre right after I got the bill.

goodbye six-pack

WHITES

“Table for one please,” Riesling, 2011.
Palette: refreshing, crisp acidity, semi-sweet finish. 

It’s very strange indeed, but have you ever felt like a stranger in your own life? I think one of my greatest struggles this year living downtown is coping with the fact I do not feel at home. I feel like I am stranded in the middle of a sea of skyscrapers. I lost count, but my apartment window looks in to over 1,000 other apartments with a 1,000 flat screen TV’s. And yet somehow I feel like I am the only other person in this world. Every morning I line-up for coffee downstairs, I stand behind six people I have never seen before and chances are will never see again. This strangeness was what I loved most about Vancouver when I first moved here. Now I’d give my left bicep for a familiar face or a Sunday night dinner.

 skyscraper ocean

FORTIFIED WINES

 “Just one more night-cap” tawny port, 1985.

I am quite confident with the fact that I still have a ways to go before I am ready to drink. There is not a decanter big enough in the world that could settle me down. If you cracked me open now, however, here is what you would get: flyer carrier, McDonald’s team leader, grocery boy, heterosexual, walking tour guide, barista, student, Catholic, bisexual, singer, warehouse supervisor, alcoholic, playwright, sales representative, editor, homosexual, son, busser, model, boyfriend, best friend, lover, drag queen, artist, busser, graduate, server, brother, journalist, columnist, spiritualist, and restaurant manager. Give me another ten to twenty years and then I’m sure I’ll be ready to pour.  

cheers, cin cin, salut, nasdrovia.