only rain (Patreon)

Everyone told me that Victoria was glorious and beautiful but it turns out it is only rain and uphill walks.

The sexiest parts of this city are the insides of its bars, which are vastly superior to Toronto. I’ve now settled a dozen bills within their thematically committed walls, and I’ll do it again.

I also prefer their liquor stores, which are not all one chain controlled by the government, but a charming scrappy mishmash of various aesthetics. And are open until 11, rather than 9.

She took me to her workplace on jazz night and poured me wildly strong drinks, then she seemed a little irked at how drunk I got and how much her coworkers liked me. I also somehow ended up singing a song onstage some point, which somehow seemed to make me drunker and everyone like me even more.

There are many common sources to those two outcomes (1. drunk and 2. everyone likes me). Jazz night, meeting my girlfriends friends, my girlfriend meeting my friends, writing, being.

Sometimes everyone likes me except for my partner, because I’m good with the room but not good enough at reassuring an insecure lover. I’m like that boyfriend in that awful Taylor Swift short film, where text flashes on the screen occasionally to explain what is happening while it is already very bluntly unambiguously happening. Maybe redundancy is the desired effect. Sincerity can lack wit. Brevity is the soul of wit, redundancy has something to do with sincerity.

I thought today that it’s a shame you can’t shoot yourself in the face more than once. As in, if I’m to be found dead by my own hand, it would feel more honest if there were about ten bullets lodged in my glitchy little noggin. But after the first bullet that’s quite out of your control.

I finally made acquaintance with a writer I respect this year, but she’s not responding to my texts. She’s more famous than me, and every once in a while slaps me in the face with that “I’m so sorry I didn’t respond my brain is a used kleenex how have you BEEN”. Then nothing more for two months.

I’ve met several of those types, and I’ve always loved who they are, but I’ve grown to hold that flakiness against them. I believe each of their unstoppable cosmic unfortunate circumstantial excuses, but I think it’s a spiritual disease. Something is always wrong. I am always ever so slightly too in a tiny tizzy to respond to anyone, despite how much I love and respect them. Except for my partner. And my one friend. Just not you.

The truth is there is no startling emotional reason for us to talk. You cannot always force a friendship (sometimes you can with tenacity, it is a kind of very intentional love). What we really have to talk about is writing. I should send something and ask their opinion. But my novella divulges so much evil and messiness I don’t yet trust her with it. Trust is built with relationship. Relationship that would be built by trusting her with the work. I wrote this, could you let me know what you think?

I always tell my mom I’ll get off the wine when I have a child. I was abandoned as a kid, I would never do it to another. That’s how it goes, you either become your parent or you war with them, running away from all they stand for in bold defiance. Fully controlled by their example regardless. So I feel all sorts of confidence in my ability to run from my dead lazy cowardly father, but then I read Bukowski and I’m researching Dan Harmon and I wonder if I will stop? Or am I just one of those that never stops? Then dies? And is beloved?

It pours outside as I pour my wine, and I write, and she lays in her bedsheets picking the right stickers for her Instagram story. She tells me she’s happy I’m here and I believe her.