edwards block

As is well known among those who have long felt an inexplicable desire to suffer my company during the darker months, I am not an enthusiast of the holiday in which we are currently immersed. I don’t erect a tree, I don’t hang lights in my windows, I think eggnog a vile substance unsuited to human consumption regardless of the quantity of rum with which one dilutes it, and I have largely recovered from the social guilt that in the past has compelled me to prepare and mail to my friends and acquaintances the pulped remains of the boreal forest. (Evidently, I have not yet abandoned a propensity for lengthy sentences. Welcome to my Henry James Christmas story.)

This year, however, I fear that I may be having some sort of mental breakdown: I’m feeling unusually charitable.

I’m not especially fond of clothes shopping, so I generally leave it until it becomes a necessity. As misfortune would have it, my last pair of 501s decided to burst apart (no, not in the chilly California sand) five days before Christmas. As I said, I don’t shop very willingly, and I certainly don’t set foot anywhere near a store or mall after Halloween for fear of encountering horrors such as the Backstreet Boys Christmas Album playing on an endless cycle. They say that suicides increase at this time of year, and after my experience working in a mall a number of years ago, I’m convinced that these are largely comprised of retail workers pushed beyond the limits of aural human endurance. Waterboarding has nothing on Celine Dion wailing Adeste Fideles.

Not surprisingly, it was with some apprehension that I set out to buy more jeans on the evening of the darkest night. As solstice rituals go, mine seemed ill-advised. I’d rather have been dancing around an evergreen, clad only in ivy and toasting the moon with a hogshead of the blood of the sacred grape, but it was either now, or January, for I’d sooner stroll about Vancouver naked than set foot in a store during ‘Boxing Week’, and I kind of wanted the trousers earlier rather than later.

I began to sense that something was amiss at the bank, where I held the door for someone behind me and – get this – smiled. Then, waiting for a red light to change (an out of character incident in itself) on Howe Street, I found myself making smiley-faces at a pram-bound infant gawking at me with wide-eyed interest, until his or her presumed parent caught me and I was forced to hurriedly turn my head to check the status of the walk signal.

I went to The Bay, for not only can I get into it without entering the evil mall, I know which door to enter that doesn’t require either that I walk through the cologne section or have to use an escalator to get to the Levi’s section. As luck would have it, the 21st turned out to be one of only 362 days in the calendar year that The Bay gives out Scratch and Save cards, and spending less on clothes is for me second in popularity only to wearing none of them at all. As I was there anyway, I decided to buy three pairs of pants, and some socks (spending roughly 20% of my 2007 income, I might add, somewhat proudly). Naturally, I was also given what surely must be my 17th Bay credit card in order to enjoy an additional ten percent off of my purchases. You’d think they’d eventually clue in and stop giving me these cards, as when they eventually arrive in the mail, I cut them up and toss them, never to be used. Cash is everywhere I want to be.

I must digress briefly on the subject of Scratch and Save. There are three possible discount amounts to scratch: 30, 40, or 50 percent. I’ve always suspected that cards providing fifty percent are severely limited, if any exist at all. As I was mindlessly scratching my card to reveal the predicted 30%, the woman behind me engaged the cashier in a discussion of the topic. He said to her, “We departments all compete to see who gets the 50%”. Characteristically silent until this point, I burst forth with almost a shout, “Aha!”. Beaming in victory, I turned to the woman behind me and said “You’ll notice that he said the 50%.” Everyone in line had a good laugh at this.

Picture it. There I was, standing in a long line at a cashier in a department store, buying clothes, four days before bloody Christmas, and engaging in jocularity with my fellow Gomorrahns.

I swear, during the whole journey from home to store to home, I didn’t once scowl at a soul, or mutter under my breath, with Tourette-like articulation, about the third-world schlock with which we purport to honour ‘our’ christ. In fact, on the way home I stopped at a bookstore for a couple of novels, and afterward I was a block away from the store before I realised that I was humming I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.

Now, I’ve been having some unusual dreams lately, but I don’t recall any with Sim-like characters dragging me unwillingly through traumas past, present and future. Most of my dreams have been more satisfyingly Bacchanalian in theme than reminiscent of Ezeqielian repentance. (Is that a word, or is my attempt at classical metaphor ridiculous?).

Perhaps my apparent conversion from Christmas-sceptical grump to, well, Christmas-sceptical sorta-cheerful, is less a vision-induced submission to something about which I am inherently and decidedly unenthusiastic, and more a result of just having been to a few more fun, satisfying and highly social seasonal parties this year than usual. Or maybe I am actually undergoing some sort of fundamental conversion, the culmination of which is yet to be known. As I once said, “I think I’ve done just about everything I said I’d never do”. So who knows? I do, however, remain sceptical.

To all my friends, a Happy Solstice!

For the past week, I have been suffering from flu-like conditions that I apparently picked up secondhand from the current consort of my roommate. Such misery! My throat feels like ground glass when I cough or sneeze – not an infrequent occurrence – and I have plenty of aches of the head, neck, shoulders and, at times, the teeth. My nose is rubbed raw from blowing it and there is a disconcerting presence of phosphorescent liquids. More than you care to know, perhaps, but I’m sure it paints a picture of the discomfort.

Unpleasant as it is, though, one must remember that at any given time, someone, somewhere, is suffering more grandly. What better way to put one’s pain in perspective than to pay some heed to someone else’s suffering? With this thought in mind, I went to visit the Globe and Mail to see what tragedy might be unfolding toward which can focus my blurry vision.

There on the front page was a photo of Stephen Harper. This didn’t help. For the first time during my illness, I felt nauseous, as I always do when the words “Prime”, “Minister” and “Harper” are combined into a single, spirit-dampening triactor of unfortunate phraseology. The accompanying article contained text that showed the words “Harper” and “Mulroney” in the same sentence. In my rich fantasy life, I often think of Harper and Mulroney in a single sentence, but usually the fantasy includes a cell in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines shared with “Mom” Boucher, with “Mom” taking more of a “Dad” role after lights out. But this isn’t the way that I meant to make myself feel better. Let’s move on.

It was the mention of Brian Mulroney that got me on track for feeling mildly empathetic. Not for Mulroney himself, of course. It’s Mulroney’s “spokesman”, Luc Lavoie, the guy that has to stand up and publicly proclaim the depth of Mulroney’s innocence and the peerless extent of the great man’s unquestionable virtue. Maybe it pays well, but what a shitty job!

I’ve been contemplating a return to the workforce of late, which means that I’m actually going to have to go out and do a little self-marketing, something I never enjoy and therefore find it a difficult activity to embark upon. In my darker moments, I sometimes fear that, in some sort of perverse path-of-no-resistance, I’ll end up being employed as the counter boy at the New York Fries outlet in The Mall. Have you ever been there?

Many years ago, I was a shoe salesman in the previously mentioned mall, an occupation that I despised thoroughly. Whenever I was feeling like I could sink no lower than to be on my knees stuffing a size nine foot into a size six shoe while trying not to look up the skirt that was splayed open before me, I would take a walk down to the food fair and watch the pimply-faced kid behind the counter, shaking the grease off the potatoes for probably less than minimum wage. He’d dump them in a paper bag, collect some money, and turn back to make more, all while a frumpy middle-aged manager yelled at him if he stopped moving for a second. And then I would go back to the shoe store, feeling a just little less miserable.

But I think I’d rather work in the fry shop than be Luc Lavoie. The poor bastard!

The nudist gathering finished up, mercifully, with one sunny, warm day on which to actually remove one’s clothes comfortably. Though the overall event wasn’t really my scene, fundamentally, I had some fun and met some good people. Among these was Paul, who most people considered my body double though we didn’t think we looked like each other at all, beyond the hair-and-beard thing. After a couple of days, we were both sick of people asking us if we were related and we started making up stories ranging from incestuous fantasies to Manson Family idolatry, and even found a few believers.

At the end, I went back to New York and hung out with Tim, who lives at Easton but also has an apartment in the city. Among other things, we went to see A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Central Park before travelling back to Easton together. I then spent a few days helping out with a large retreat gathering, and saying goodbye to all of my Easton friends. I feel like I was there for more than just a few short weeks and I’m going to miss everyone. Perhaps I’ll have to come back next summer.

A New York image on 5th Avenue, where even the homeless are in on the patriotic action:

The next leg of my journey back to Vancouver was a stop in Chicago to visit Marsha, whom I met in Costa Rica in May. Here’s a picture of Marsha reflected in the “Cloud Gate“, a giant legume-shaped sculpture that the locals refer to as “The Bean”. The photographer can also be seen in the reflection if you squint closely:

Here’s me with the Chicago skyline hiding in the smog behind:

Impulsively, we decided to take a short drive (589 miles) down to Madison, Alabama, where Marsha has a second home. It took about nine hours of driving, in Marsha’s Mini, travelling through five states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Of those, I had only been to Tennessee previously. We stayed in Alabama two nights, then drove back to Chicago on Saturday. Here’s me and the Mini, in front of the Alabama house:

When we got back, we went to an outdoor concert by the Lyric Opera Company of Chicago in Millenium Park downtown, which was surprisingly packed.

Tomorrow night I’ll be boarding a flight to Vancouver, bringing to an end this season’s travels. Probably.

I spent the better part of the night freezing and huddled in the foetal position beneath the thin gruel of my $48 linens, enhanced by the meager weight of all my clothes (how many could I have brought to a nudist camp?). The wind was howling and banging doors and windows. I was somewhat surprised not to wake up to snow-covered fields.

I finally managed to drag myself out to breakfast just in time for the last of the luke-warm buffet, though all I really cared about was the hot tea. Then I went back to bed and read until lunch.

As it was sunny, but with a cold wind, I spent much of the afternoon sitting on a bench by the lake, out of the breeze, reading. Then it was off to the “Bare Bear” themed social hour, at which I was largely taken hostage by a pair of dullards who hope to seduce me but haven’t the faintest hope. This was followed by dinner (spaghetti and meatballs). Later in the evening, a “Dirty Disco” was scheduled to take place across the lake, the area designated for “adult play”. Always the attentive journalist, I went over to investigate and found very little dancing happening, though there were plenty of people standing around watching a few play around. The air was thick with amyl nitrate, which I find rather repulsive in any environment (but especially so in a deafening environment).

Sunday morning, I missed breakfast. I woke up early, but could not exert the courage to drag myself from my warm bed. I stayed there until lunch, ate, and then returned to it. In the afternoon, several hundred more people arrived, including many of my roommates. Sunday evening there was a concert by professional operatic tenor, which was very popular, partly because it was held indoors, but also because he is, quite justifiably, very popular.

Now that the event has “officially” started, there are many more events. Many people decorate their cabins quite elaborately, and most of those who are organised host a party sometime during the week. There are also film screenings, workshops, crafts, massage and other training activities, as well as a fully equipped (real) disco. Regrettably, my cabin is near the disco, but I can’t actually hear the music. It’s the generator that I can hear clearly. There’s no point trying to sleep before 1:00am, so I went to the disco last night. I am not traditionally a dancer, as I was born without any sense of rhythm, but I was surprised to find that it was actually fun (see, I don’t only criticise!). As they say – “when in Rome, do the Romans”.

As I may have mentioned previously, I have a commission to produce a couple of articles about an annual nudist gathering for gay men in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. To that end, I picked up a charter bus outside of Fordham University in Manhattan, next to Lincoln Centre, on Friday afternoon. Rather than observe the view or converse with the other ten passengers, I was able to finish my novel on the two and a half hour ride. The novel was Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow. It was enjoyable enough, but I didn’t love it. I’m not sure why yet, though it may have something to do with the author’s personal views, and her frequent use of popular cliches. Perhaps I’ve simply been reading too much Jane Austen and need to relax my literary bar a little.

The weather was warm, sunny and humid (as usual in the summer) in Manhattan, but as the bus neared the Poconos, the sky became very dark – too dark to read – and it began to rain. An electrical storm was breaking overhead as the bus arrived at the Pocono Valley Resort at about 4:30 and deposited us in front of what appeared to be a very large barn. Some of my fellow passengers were screaming like schoolgirls as they deboarded into the rain, putting up umbrellas and pulling on transparent ponchos before running toward the open barn. I calmly walked the thirty feet to the door, muttering under my breath about “pussies”.

Inside the barn, a horseshoe-shaped reception circuit had been set up for new arrivals, with a lot of luggage and men hovering about the centre waiting for a break in the now torrential downpour. I picked up my registration package at the first station. Next stop was the “schwag” counter, a convention tradition everywhere at which one picks up cheap and often useless gifts. I’m sure the amount of garbage distributed in this manner at conventions all over the United States each year could fill a transfer station the size of Iowa. I declined the offer of a GNI tote bag, a pair of multi-coloured sunglasses, a GNI pen, a keychain bottle opener, and other crap, and moved on to the “linens” pick-up counter. One has a choice – bring your own linens or rent them for $48. For the same amount, I could probably stop at Wal-Mart and pick up linens for a family of four and still have enough left to buy a round of ammunition. But I didn’t, so I paid.

The event officially starts on Sunday afternoon, but an early arrival option (Friday) was offered, which I took for two reasons. One, I wanted to get the entire experience, from start to finish. Also, after three weeks at a quiet retreat in upstate New York, I was concerned about the shock of the sudden over-stimulation of being deposited in a crowd of 800 gay men geared up for festivity, and the early option allowed me a more gradual acclimatisation. I’m happy to be naked anywhere, but I’m generally less happy to be surrounded in crowds. I estimate that about 150 to 200 men showed up at the same time, so there’s still stimulation, but it’s manageable. It helps that for the first two nights I am alone in my bunkhouse. On Sunday, there will be ten.

Once the rain eased slightly, I made my way to cabin C6, to which I had been assigned and which is down a hill toward the dammed end of a small lake. I chose a bed in the corner of the military-like room and made it up with my valuable linens, then relaxed until dinner reviewing the registration package, which essentially contains a calendar of events and a nametag.

As this was my first time here, and as I was alone in my cabin, I was uncertain of the protocol for dinner. Was I to appear in the dining hall completely naked? Although I’m not skin-shy, I am less fond of drawing toward myself the unwanted attention of large groups through my own unfortunate faux pas. Peering out the window, I determined that most of the people heading toward the dining hall were largely undressed, so I did the same.

As someone who is generally fairly socially reserved in environments where I know no one, I was slightly unnerved to arrive at the dining hall to find that almost everyone else was already present, seated, and eating. I picked up a styrofoam plate and some plastic cutlery and moved through the buffet collecting food. Rather than feel distress, I was busy feeling appalled at the calculations that my mind was working on. Seven days, 800 men, at least three styrofoam plates per man per day. Almost 17,000 plates! Add the cutlery, napkins, and drinking cups and there must be truckloads of garbage hauled away from here. I wish they had warned me, so that I could have brought my own dishes. Sorry, Iowa!

Dinner itself was good enough. Boneless chicken, pasta, vegetables, dessert. Rather than cowardly choosing an empty table and dining alone, I invited myself to join a table of others, which went fine, though they weren’t overly chatty. But then, neither am I.

Each evening, there is a “themed” cocktail hour. The first night’s theme was “totally naked”, which seemed rather pointless as everyone was already mandated to be naked anyway. For some reason, gay men seem to love the word “cocktail”. One might suspect that the phallic suggestion of the word is the reason, but it seems that the word may actually just have a pretension to it that appeals to homosexuals. Think of Scott Thompson’s Kids in the Hall character Buddy who was always talking about a “smart cocktail”. I don’t really get it, myself, but then, I seldom get pop expressions. I’m happy to call a drink a drink. It seems especially silly to refer to commercially produced red wine, poured from a cardboard box into a plastic cup bearing a Budweiser logo, as a “cocktail”.