Christmas comes but once a year

- leave a message. I'm not here.

[well, I'm in Toronto, just taking a break from blogging]

Is it some sort of white thing?

Last night I had dinner with a guy I worked with 10 years ago. It was great to catch up with him. We've stayed in touch all along, but we rarely get a chance to meet up. We also don't keep up with one another's day to day life anymore. He lives out of town so we see each other once, maybe twice, a year when he comes to Toronto for conferences.

I was mentioning that my bf was travelling for a month. At that point my friend asked what had happened to the other guy I was dating who he had met a couple of years ago. I had absolutely no clue who my friend was talking about. I was wracking my brains trying to think of anyone I was involved with two years ago who could possibly have met this friend. I asked him, "Dave? Are you thinking of Dave?" - even though he knew my ex Dave quite well, and that relationship ended five years ago.

He slowly said, "No. No, it wasn't Dave. I know Dave. No, this was Rick? Todd?"

I was so lost.

"We were eating at Terroni's. He met you after that."

I suddenly knew exactly who he was talking about. First of all I hadn't clued in because my friend had the timeline off by a year. It was only last year that we had met D.

Secondly, I had no clue why my friend hadn't just mentioned that D. is black. I guess my friend thought it would be racist or inappropriate to say something like, "He was a black man", but it would have made perfect descriptive sense and I would have clued in right away.

It would be different if someone told me, "I'm going to meet my friend for coffee. She's Chinese", or, "Do you want to join me and my boyfriend for dinner? He's Indian." In both cases the race is irrelevant. As would any major description at that point be. It would also be pointless to try and narrow down my three long-term boyfriends by describing one as white because they were all white.

But what on earth is wrong with describing someone's race if it is a unique characteristic? Skin colour is just like our hair colour or body type. It makes us who we are, and it shouldn't have to be associated as wrong to say.

On the other hand, if R. tries to differentiate me from past girlfriends by stating that I'm the older, heavier one... I will have to kill him.

Eight random facts

(1) Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

(2) People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.

(3) At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

(4) Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


1. I have had a crush on someone for 26 years.
2. I hate baseball to this day because of traumatic memories of no one wanting me on their team in grade five. What made it worse was that I was quite popular and the team captains chose the class outcasts before me.
3. I have plates and screws holding my upper jaw together
4. Often when I leave the house in the morning I run back to make sure that I turned the stove off.
5. I can't sleep with my back to the door or with the closet door closed.
6. I wouldn't care if my bf hired a sex worker but I would care if he had sex with a woman he knows who doesn't respect me
7. For the past 12 years I've either lived on my own or with a boyfriend. As such, I almost never close the bathroom door if I just have to pee, and have to remind myself to do so when I have friends over.
8. I am scared of so many things but I rarely let my fears hold me back.

I tag: Laverne, Brice, Freak, Stewie, Greg, Hotdudi, Madame Rouge, and Coffeedog

I can't remember who hates memes and who loves 'em, so please if I tagged you and you don't want to participate - that's fine. If you want to do this and I didn't tag you, my apologies and please go ahead and do so. The more the merrier!

Bye bye boyfriend

Not in a permanent sense, but my bf has gone travelling for the next month. It will be a much needed break in a very chaotic work schedule for him. For me though, it means I will be alone on Christmas, my birthday, and New Year's. Well, obviously not alone. Of course I have friends and family. It just is difficult that finally we were both in the same town and able to have a more normal pattern together when - poof! He's gone again. It will be interesting to see for both of us if this month pans out as "absence makes the heart grow fonder" or "out of sight, out of mind". Hopefully the former!

Take a moment

Today is World AIDS Day. Last year the Canadian government pledged millions, along with the Gates Foundation, to create a state of the art centre to find a vaccine for HIV. That's fantastic and all, but what our government also decided was to recoup costs on some of the millions pledged to this initiative by taking that money away from funding designated for community groups. Ontario was the province that took the hit.

Community groups in Ontario have seen their funding slashed by 30% - and these are not groups that were exactly wealthy to begin with. Ontario's Minister of Health spoke out against these cuts.

For those of you in Ontario, if you have not yet decided where to direct your charitable contributions for the year, please consider donating to a local AIDS Service Organization. You can make online contributions directly through canadahelps.org, or for some organizations such as Toronto People with AIDS Foundation, you can donate from their web site.