I'm up at six o'clock,with no real need to be gone until eight. I rise,shower, then gather up the remainder of last night's pizza and put it on a plate and into the refrigerator.At least it wont be stolen here.I never drink coffee, so I take a swig from a half empty two liter bottle of coke, and rummage about for something to eat.Aaron is loudly pissing in the bathroom again, door open, and I think,I really need to be living someplace a bit more private.Or civilized.Civilized would work too.Aaron looks more than half asleep when he steps into the kitchen and produces a loud beer infused belch that tells me he has been up most of the night.
Since I have time for an actual breakfast this morning I begin searching through the contents of the fridge, after having rejected the thought of cold pizza.I choose a small steak,and dump it into a pan of very hot oil.Three minutes on either side.The I toss two cold potatoes into the oil and chop them up and let them fry for five minutes.I really should be eating better.But I need to go to the store because I'm nearly out of fruit, and these days whole grain cereal bathers my stomach.So I'm stuck with this breakfast of champions for today at least. That or something from the vending machines at work.Later today I'll get my ass in gear and go buy some decent food.Laundry needs to be done too,and I'll maybe do that at the same time.
The walk to work is time for thinking.I meet the two Mormon missionaries as I'm leaving, so my first thought is that I've left just in time. Abu will be entertaining them for breakfast, and the other tenants will either complain about them being noisy,or making it hard to get around in the kitchen.Either way,there will be a bit of tension until they are gone.
Most days I ask myself why I'm in Calgary.I told myself I'd never live here, after a brief stint here in 1979. But of course, I followed Janet here.That was the whole reason for my being here.Or, at least it was.But now Janet is long gone, but I'm still here.
Janet turned out to be a bad idea.A bad idea for me, and she no doubt thinks the same thing in regards to herself.In point of fact, I really should have given a lot more thought to the idea of leaving Edmonton, but I guess I still wasn't grown up enough to be able to think everything through.I liked the attraction that seemed to be there and I was still buying into this idea that everyone seemed to have that all people needed to be mated. I was starting to grow out of that idea, but it took Janet to give me a final push.
I was determined to try to live a Christian life.I told myself not to get into bed with Janet.But I really should have known that that wasn't going to work.Because I was new in town,and it was difficult to find suitable living arrangements it was agreed that I would move in with Janet. The actual arrangement involved her having the bedroom, and me sleeping on a bed I made on the floor of her living room.Good enough to satisfy the requirements of Christian morality, I thought.
Life was good at the start.They call it the honeymoon phase of relationships.So we would eat dinner by candlelight every evening, and we went everywhere together.In the early morning hours I got up and went off to the day labor office, and in just a short time I was working full time in a mill, recycling paper.On Sunday's Janet worked until six, and I would pick her up and we would go to church together.It all settled into a routine that was tolerable for a little while.
There was a election in the fall of the year 2000 as well.Janet it turned out was politically active, having gotten a degree in Political Science from The University Of Calgary.So we also attended a couple of political debates.Janet seemed to know a numbers of people there, including one of the candidates.She claimed to be Liberal, but the Conservative candidate was an old classmate of hers, and they greeted each other warmly.We listened to various candidates debating issues and taking questions, and I went home no more informed than when I'd arrived.Janet seemed to enjoy the debate more as a social function than as a debate.
In the months ahead,I began to see Janet in another light.Politics is not just what she did, it's who she was, and reasonably early on in our relationship,it began to take center stage in my life.Janet ,it seemed, had to have an influence in everything I did, way beyond what I considered reasonable.She insisted that it was she wanted to help me-in general ,she said she enjoyed helping people.That's what politics was to her.The ability to influence people for the better.There came a time when I wondered if it wasn't just about influencing people, for some end known only too her.
At some point soon after my arrival, Janet began insisting that whenever I went out of the house, I should only dress in muted tones of grey,black or brown.I didn't look good in bright colors she said.The only thing was, I enjoyed wearing bright clothing.She stubbornly insisted that I should wear only clothing I considered drab.I'd heard of and even known males that did the same with their wives or girlfriends.When they did it, it seemed controlling to me, and inappropriate.One night at church,there was a young woman, maybe not quite twenty playing violin along with the other musicians.She was tall, with long blond hair.Rather striking in appearance.After the service was over, I was talking to this woman for a few minutes.Something I never should have done, because after we got to the car,Janet insisted I'd been flirting with the girl.Actually, we'd been talking about music.But that explanation did not satisfy Janet."You a wearing bright clothes again,and the both of you were touching your hair.That's what people do when they're flirting."
"I'm not interested in some girl that's young enough to be my daughter." I replied.And I wasn't.
We silently entered the apartment, but once we were inside Janet said"I was going to come and join you in bed for a while tonight.But I don't think I'll bother.Sleep by yourself."
In retrospect I should have recognized this right away as controlling, manipulative behavior, and hit the road.But as a man, while I can easily recognize when other men are doing this, it's not something that I tended to think of as female behavior.I guess I thought that as a man, no woman was going to do that to me.But this was hardly a reasonable assumption,given that I was living with a political animal.But I was starting to wake up.
Since I have time for an actual breakfast this morning I begin searching through the contents of the fridge, after having rejected the thought of cold pizza.I choose a small steak,and dump it into a pan of very hot oil.Three minutes on either side.The I toss two cold potatoes into the oil and chop them up and let them fry for five minutes.I really should be eating better.But I need to go to the store because I'm nearly out of fruit, and these days whole grain cereal bathers my stomach.So I'm stuck with this breakfast of champions for today at least. That or something from the vending machines at work.Later today I'll get my ass in gear and go buy some decent food.Laundry needs to be done too,and I'll maybe do that at the same time.
The walk to work is time for thinking.I meet the two Mormon missionaries as I'm leaving, so my first thought is that I've left just in time. Abu will be entertaining them for breakfast, and the other tenants will either complain about them being noisy,or making it hard to get around in the kitchen.Either way,there will be a bit of tension until they are gone.
Most days I ask myself why I'm in Calgary.I told myself I'd never live here, after a brief stint here in 1979. But of course, I followed Janet here.That was the whole reason for my being here.Or, at least it was.But now Janet is long gone, but I'm still here.
Janet turned out to be a bad idea.A bad idea for me, and she no doubt thinks the same thing in regards to herself.In point of fact, I really should have given a lot more thought to the idea of leaving Edmonton, but I guess I still wasn't grown up enough to be able to think everything through.I liked the attraction that seemed to be there and I was still buying into this idea that everyone seemed to have that all people needed to be mated. I was starting to grow out of that idea, but it took Janet to give me a final push.
I was determined to try to live a Christian life.I told myself not to get into bed with Janet.But I really should have known that that wasn't going to work.Because I was new in town,and it was difficult to find suitable living arrangements it was agreed that I would move in with Janet. The actual arrangement involved her having the bedroom, and me sleeping on a bed I made on the floor of her living room.Good enough to satisfy the requirements of Christian morality, I thought.
Life was good at the start.They call it the honeymoon phase of relationships.So we would eat dinner by candlelight every evening, and we went everywhere together.In the early morning hours I got up and went off to the day labor office, and in just a short time I was working full time in a mill, recycling paper.On Sunday's Janet worked until six, and I would pick her up and we would go to church together.It all settled into a routine that was tolerable for a little while.
There was a election in the fall of the year 2000 as well.Janet it turned out was politically active, having gotten a degree in Political Science from The University Of Calgary.So we also attended a couple of political debates.Janet seemed to know a numbers of people there, including one of the candidates.She claimed to be Liberal, but the Conservative candidate was an old classmate of hers, and they greeted each other warmly.We listened to various candidates debating issues and taking questions, and I went home no more informed than when I'd arrived.Janet seemed to enjoy the debate more as a social function than as a debate.
In the months ahead,I began to see Janet in another light.Politics is not just what she did, it's who she was, and reasonably early on in our relationship,it began to take center stage in my life.Janet ,it seemed, had to have an influence in everything I did, way beyond what I considered reasonable.She insisted that it was she wanted to help me-in general ,she said she enjoyed helping people.That's what politics was to her.The ability to influence people for the better.There came a time when I wondered if it wasn't just about influencing people, for some end known only too her.
At some point soon after my arrival, Janet began insisting that whenever I went out of the house, I should only dress in muted tones of grey,black or brown.I didn't look good in bright colors she said.The only thing was, I enjoyed wearing bright clothing.She stubbornly insisted that I should wear only clothing I considered drab.I'd heard of and even known males that did the same with their wives or girlfriends.When they did it, it seemed controlling to me, and inappropriate.One night at church,there was a young woman, maybe not quite twenty playing violin along with the other musicians.She was tall, with long blond hair.Rather striking in appearance.After the service was over, I was talking to this woman for a few minutes.Something I never should have done, because after we got to the car,Janet insisted I'd been flirting with the girl.Actually, we'd been talking about music.But that explanation did not satisfy Janet."You a wearing bright clothes again,and the both of you were touching your hair.That's what people do when they're flirting."
"I'm not interested in some girl that's young enough to be my daughter." I replied.And I wasn't.
We silently entered the apartment, but once we were inside Janet said"I was going to come and join you in bed for a while tonight.But I don't think I'll bother.Sleep by yourself."
In retrospect I should have recognized this right away as controlling, manipulative behavior, and hit the road.But as a man, while I can easily recognize when other men are doing this, it's not something that I tended to think of as female behavior.I guess I thought that as a man, no woman was going to do that to me.But this was hardly a reasonable assumption,given that I was living with a political animal.But I was starting to wake up.
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