Life Is Not Purgatory

A Marathon Run
... with a sprint to the finish!

I live, and despite concerted efforts on the part of the world to deny me attendence at the Old Year's Wake - I will be there.

It's been a long week starting pretty much at noon of Dec 24 and it will end sometime in the morning hours of Jan 1. But I'm really enjoying myself in F&B although with the recent and last minute departure of the Front Office Supervisor, I'll need to multi-task and still shephard that department as well.

I'll see everyone at the Wake, or in the days following it as I do not have to return until Thursday afternoon.

A Song
...to the tune of Happy Christmas (War is Over) by John Lennon

So this is Christmas
Another year done
It’s been quite a poor one
Despite so much fun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you don’t shun
The others around you
Who have come undone.

A very merry Christmas
And a Happy New Year
I’ll hope for a good one
With never a tear

And so this is Christmas
To family and friends
Best wishes as always
To whatever ends

Amethyst Conundrum
... and lighter fare.

I like people. I like a lot of people. I am attracted to several people - but I generally (as a rule) crash and burn in most of these situations. I've always been a little 'shy' when it comes to taking the first tentative steps in a relationship - I'm generally too afraid to hurt others, hurt the friendship, or hurt myself that I simply let the status quo reign.

My recent attempts to break myself of this have not gone well - one resulted in the whole 'other man' debacle and the other has me as the second fiddle (not that I really mind - I'm pretty much used to failure) to someone who is a little more 'shiny' than me. Now, I'm not bitter but I am discouraged. I would really like 2005 to end on a good note - otherwise it's probably one of the worst years I've ever had (although nowhere near washing out of university).

PS - I don't get the meaning of the Amethyst. I was given a stone tonight and told to research it and it would bring me some clarity... but the descriptions have done little more than confuse me.

Pheromones
... and other things that smell (a serious diversion from the soap opera of my life).

There are subjects that people dance around because they are afraid to tear the scab off wounds, or to emotionally injure friends with the truth and yet secretly they yearn for the opportunity to discuss it when the other party seems prepared or at least capable of handling the comments. I was up until 4:00am this morning having just such a conversation.

Almost everyone has met a few people who have 'rubbed them the wrong way', and I am no exception. Some people (especially women) get a 'widgy feeling', are 'creeped out' or otherwise simply feel uncomfortable in the presence of some individuals. A friend of mine is one of those people whom constantly receives a negative reaction that have been described in any manner of caustic ways (from misogynist to predatory). Now this friend (whom many of you know by this point of the description already) is empathetic enough to realize that he gives of these nefarious vibes. The real problem is that no matter what he does, he reinforces the initial perception:
- If he lies back and stays out of the flow of conversation he give of the impression of being anti-social perhaps even a would-be stalker.
- If he engages in conversation but is not quite articulate or witty enough then he is the social misfit (even beyond the already wide circle of misfits in LRPS) and that reinforces the uncomfortable aura.
- If he takes social cues from others such as myself who are outgoing even flirty, he comes across as lecherous, perhaps even worse.

He broached the subject with me last evening, and I confirmed his suspicions. Over the past few years I have had several conversations with my friends and acquaintances who had encountered this aura and I have repeatedly defended him to several. While I cannot make them be affected by the aura I can and have encouraged others to work past it and meet the person I know, rather than the person they sense.

Here is the catch twenty-two in this situation. The perception appears to create a self-fulfilling prophecy as people shun these people, as their emotional well-being is constantly and consistently eroded by these series of events, these victims become less likely to brave the social ostracism and become more withdrawn. As they become more withdrawn they develop more anti-social tendencies and make people more uncomfortable... and so on... and so on...

So where does this cycle lead? I don't know... but nowhere good. I have a theory that pheromones may bear some responsibility for such initial reactions, as these reaction can occur in members of the opposite sex before they even open their mouths. It cannot simply be a matter of confidence and charisma, can it? I've made a suggestion of seeking professional help in behavioral therapy or psychology, and it's being looked into.

Regardless, I've been wanting to blog about this for years, and now I finally can. It is my sincere hope that if you meet or know such a person, rather than submitting to the initial unfavorable impression attempt to suppress it and get to know the person behind the aura, the pheromones, or the mask. It won't be easy, but I think a little effort can create alot of benefit.

Stuck in the Middle
… the soap opera continues!

I should write a comedy series on my life, I think I have enough material from my ongoing email exchange with between ‘the other man’ and myself (well really, I guess I am the ‘other man’ so what does that make him?) to make a good story arc for the first few episodes, and when you factor in the near endless storylines generated by the hospitality industry it could make for either a decent sitcom or maybe even a primetime soap (although there isn’t nearly enough sex for it to be a primetime soap… I’ll have to work on that.).

Anyways ‘Bob’ (names have been changed to protect the identity of those involved) first emailed me Nov 27th, he had my email address from an email he had intercepted from “Jane” through ‘questionable’ means, and also forwarded me copies of emails from “Jane” to him essentially denouncing me and impugning my integrity. I heavily disclaimed my answers but responded nonetheless:

Let me start by saying that I think I understand where you are coming from and though that is probably little consolation to you, I hope you will accept my empathy for your situation.

However, I will confine my answers and comments to this particular emails as the other emails - one between “Jane” and myself and two between “Jane” and yourself - I consider to be confidential and privileged communications, and an invasion upon my privacy where the first email forward is concerned, and “Jane’s” where the second and third are concerned. I am greatly concerned as to the manner in which you obtained access to private email, but that is not directly my concern, it should be “Jane’s”.

With that disclaimer aside, I will get down to responding to this email, please understand that I consider my integrity to be very important to me, and while I may not answer a question you ask, I will not lie to you. I know that you have no reason to believe me - but any answer I give will be true and correct to the best of my recollection or understanding.
…

I then proceeded to answer in point form almost all of his questions, except those I deemed to be personal and confidential, such as the details of the relationship between “Jane” and I. There is a lot of information and ‘baggage’ that while I would /love/ to vent would identify everyone far to easily. All-in-all after a few short exchanges, I was thanked for my candor and the emails were silent for almost a month… he lashed out again at me a few days ago but things have settled down again.

"Jane" lied to me, and hasn't spoken to me since everything got 'outted', not even to return my email. As for the lesson I’ve learned… that’s still up in the air, but celibacy is starting to look up… not like it would change much. Hmm... need to write a pilot.

Day One
I really liked the vast majority of what I'm doing in F&B here. THe position allows me something I never really had in the kitchen... direct and consistent guest contact - something I've really missed over the past weeks.

I think this is going to work well.

PS - My phone automagically fixed itself on the drive back to Kananaskis... so it's all good.

Homogenized Bread?
... and other misscommunications.

It's funny how we get our wires crossed sometimes, and how without context nearly anything can be misconstrued. This past week has had more than a few in my life, the most humorous (portions are paraphrased):
L – "I'm heading out for errands, did you need me to pick up anything from the store."
E – "Yes please, milk and bread would be great."
L - "White or Brown?"
E – "Brown."
L – "60 or 100%"
E – "Homo."
L – "Huh!?"
T'was funny, but I guess you had to be there.

A similar and less humorous misscommunication happened via dueling blogs over the past few weeks. You see, I had gone out with (on a date) with an individual twice in a month, although we both disclaimed that it was casual and we would see where it went. During that time she had blogged about another man she was really interested in just before I had found out that had been played like a fiddle in a recent-past relationship. I then blogged out my anger, and she interpreted my post to be regarding her post (which I hadn't even read). I then read her blog about her excitement over the other gentlemen and then like the Norrington I am, withdrew myself from competition, only she thought I was mad at her and misread my blog rant of a few weeks ago as being about her! She then blogged about the estrangement and felt guilty for not talking to me about it first.... yadda... yadda... (Fade to Melrose). It's all straightened out now though... so that makes me happy, and I'm glad she is happy.

Work is about to get very interesting, my ten-week tour of duty in the kitchen is now over and I have been tapped and reactivated to assume management duties in the Banquet and Dining Room beacuse they are very, very, short staffed. The department head and his assistant are working 14-20 hour days and I am being under utilized in the kitchen, so I'll be ensuring that they can go home at a resonable hour, and the work will still get done – as I'll be there until it's finished. All in all I think it's a good move although it wasn't what I was expecting – although it may impact my 3 days off and diminish them to two... but we'll see.

I'm really looking forward to the official start of the 'Beginings' D&D Campaign that will start at about 7:00pm tonight (ie. 17 hours from now). The players all seem to have bought into thier chracters and all conributed to the development of thier home town... I think it will all work out quite well.

PS - My phone is currently out of commission and may need to be replaced so it could be about a week until it's fixed... so if anyone has called me, I'm not ignoring you - I'm just in Limbo.

Remove the Stone of Guilt!
… Attach the Stone of Shame!

Looking back on how that last post was written I don’t think I came across the way I meant too… but nonetheless I thank everyone for their explicit and blanket invitations. Here was what I meant to say (more or less): Given that I as part of my job routinely stay up until the ungodly early hours of the morning (ie. 5:00am) I have a tendency to stay up very late (or least later than most civilized people) which then makes it very difficult to impose upon their hospitality when they are already asleep.

New Gamers
So, I've started the preliminaries of my 'Beginnings' D&D campaign, loosely based upon the campaign model used by Davyd Atwood for the Campaign played by Gorra, Steph, Myrna, Captain and myself. You see the gamers our here are very Monty-Hall with many having serious Hacklust, and I think that having them help me create the world in which their characters are going to exist, will help them buy in to their characters a bit more.

Currently the setup is rather good, the most experienced player and the previous GM of the troupe created the anti-social, fame-seeking Human Fighter, while the second most experienced (and most promising) player has created the affable, well-liked Half-Elven Bard. His girlfriend (also quite promising) is Half-Elven Cleric of Corellon Larethian [twin sister to the Bard]. The wildcard is the other player (who could go either way) playing the Elven Wizard cousin of the twins. This leaves the opening of an NPC rogue that I can use to create the troupe and eventually kill him off, or simply havin him fade into the background.

In terms of Edmonton, I’m seriously beginning to rethink this how I’m doing the commute thing. I really am beginning to dislike continuously taking advantage of the hospitality of my friends, and have really felt uncomfortable asking for a place to crash when people don’t explicitly offer – so I’ve spent more than a few nights in local hotels, and although I get a good deal, it’s starting to add up. Suggestions?

Incomming!
So I'm coming up in a little more than nine hours and am taking reservations to book up my schedule. I am availible Tuesday almost all-day (infact it may just be all day if Julie stands me up for our movie plans), and the afternoon of Wednesday. I'm likely to return to Kananskis on Thursday, but that's still not certain.

See you all in town.

Income Taxes v. Consumption Taxes
We interrupt the recent blathering to bring you some political pontificating.

There are competing views on how best to collect taxes from the citizens, and I’m going to advocate a generally unpopular method of taxation – consumption taxes.

You see, I strongly feel that there are any number of illicit activities that generate income and yet escape paying income taxes on their earning simply based on the fact that if they are already breaking criminal laws in their profession – what threat is the Canadian Tax Code?

My approach would be to repeal income taxes, administer a consumption tax on all goods and services provided in Canada, apply an import duty on goods imported to Canada so that even items purchased outside of Canada will still generate tax revenue for the government. Low and modest income Canadians can still receive tax rebates like the GST/HST credit and all income earners would pay taxes, even the pimps, drug-dealers and mobsters.

Mountain Bound
I'll be returning to the bustling metropolis of Kananaskis by 1:00pm which will get me back to residence by 4:30pm - leaving me enough time to have a power snooze, shower, etc so I can be at work for 6:00pm.

I'm glad to see that GZ Games (at 10521 Kingsway Ave) is up and running as of December 1st! So I caught up with a number of people I haven't seen since Ground Zero closed, whcih was very nice and I am going to be placing orders to replenish my diminishing gaming collection. Special Note: Instead of being stuck with being member number 9, I managed to get them to change my member number to the much more memorable: 42. Sweet!

I also found out today that as of Dec 16th, I'll have the entire Managers Suite in residnce to myself as my current roommate is returning to Quebec for 3 or 4 months! Excellent news!

Sigh, I did it again, and touched the 'third rail' of another persons' life and was lucky to leave the conversation with all my extremeties intact. I need to walk more soflty, especially when I know better than to ask stupid questions in earnest - they tend to backfire on me. :)

I leave you with Sphinx-ism to unravel for me from a recent conversation:
Person A: "I don't think people are your friends for the reasons you think."
Cameron: (Puzzled Look) "Okay... so why are they my friends?"
Person A: "I don't know."

Oath of Stars
So I came up for two days this week following the Rotary Christmas Party mostly to participate in Eric's playtest of the adaptation of Riddle of Steel into a Space Opera/Arthurian Romance combo - it's been a lot of fun and I am really looking forward to see how it develops.

It looks like I'll be resuming fulltime management duties back at the hotel in the near future but there is 'something' afoot that neither of my bosses can discuss so I have no idea what direction it's going to go. Although we have discussed what any such change will mean to my so-called social life and I'm fairly certain I will be able to juggle my schedule to get either Tue-Wed or Wed-Thu as regular days off given I have a tendency to work 12+ hours a day working in the office that I should be able to find a suitable equilibrium between my social life vs. my boss' sanity.

I'm still in town this evening, but I haven't decided if I am going to BP's tonight, to James/La's for gaming, or whether I'm going to drive home. I do know I'm going to swing by the gaming store and see if they opened on Dec 1st like I heard they were going to.

Now, to reflect upon my last post - we all have our failings, we all have our weaknesses, and we all struggle to overcome our shortcomings, and improve ourselves. We all make mistakes. And some mistakes happen even with the best intentions to the contrary... but all the confirmation in the world can't help if someone lies, or not even a strong a word as 'lie'... how about 'fib'. How does it feel to wake up one day and realize that they were or were perceived to be the 'other man' or the 'other woman'? Shitty, let me tell you - but I've learned something in this entire debacle the thing is I can't decide which lesson I want to learn... and I'm not certain if I ever will.