Forever Tainted

Sodomy Sentence Reduced to Molestation ~*Gulf News

"The convict's lawyer, Ali Al Abbadi, argued: "My client didn't sodomise the schoolboy... the forensic report confirmed that the boy was not sodomised (there were no signs of any intercourse) but the examination showed that there were signs of sexual interaction which occurred due to possible molestation.""

What I want to know is exactly what examinations can determine whether a person has actually been penetrated, or just “molested?” Sounds like a crock of shit to ignorant little me. Any rapist/child-molester deserves capital punishment.

And while I’m on the topic of child abuse, watch this movie (the whole thing available in parts on YouTube). It’s heartbreaking.

Yesterday, the road report said the temperature was 2 degrees, at noon. I find that hard to believe because the chill of the breeze seemed to slice though my clothing and into my skin. I was almost sure I’d wake up this morning to find a coat of white snow covering everything in sight. The mountains surrounding this little town have been capped in snow for a couple of weeks now. It’s creeping in.

I hate the cold. And it doesn’t help that the sun seems to start setting around 4pm. By 5 you feel as though it’s about 11pm – time for bed; when really, you haven’t even had dinner yet. Winter is depressing for me. The next few months will not be easy.

It all started on Monday night when my father called to tell me my mom was in the hospital. According to him, she’d been admitted for pneumonia/bronchitis and was detoxing at the same time. It was too late for me to get there, as the ferries stop trips early in the evening. First thing Tuesday morning I called my office to see if I could get the day (or a few days) off to go and visit her. At less than 100lbs (45.45 kgs) my mother is on the verge of vanishing into nothing even without illness. Death was the first thought that came to my mind.

I couldn’t reach my boss, or her daughter. Almost coincidentally, they were both in the hospital as my boss had been suffering severe chest pains that morning. My shift was from 3pm until 11pm on Tuesday and I had no choice but to go in. By the time they got out of the hospital and were accessible, it was too late again for me to take a trip to the island. I did however get the Wednesday and Thursday off, swapping shifts with a colleague of mine. So I went home from work that night thinking I’d get a little sleep and then jump on the first ferry in the morning. But sleep wouldn’t come. Instead, I spent the night tossing and turning, jumping up for a smoke here and there, until 3am when I got in the shower and quickly packed whatever I thought I’d need. I was at my nieces house before 4am, ready to take her to visit her grandma too.

We made it to my mom in the hospital around 10.30am. She was shocked to see us. But for the first time in over a year, she welcomed my presence. She was thankful for the time we’d taken to go out there, she was thankful for the flowers, she was thankful to have someone to play cards with in the hospital. For the first time, she resembled that best friend of mine from so long ago. She hardly had a voice, but was in good spirits. She’d been answering the hospital phones, because the place was so busy there never seemed to be a nurse around. We spent the day with her in the hospital, listened to her talk, walked around with her until her doctor came and told her she could leave. He made me listen to the final lecture before we left though. And that was a lecture that for a moment, seemed to make my mother want to push me away.

It turned out she had gone into the hospital on her own, pissed drunk, asking for help for her alcoholism. The other illnesses had been discovered and treated the week before. She had been chemically detoxed and now, simply had to follow it up by not drinking and attending counselling for both her alcoholism and metal state. As the doctor talked, my mom’s eyes looked either directly at him, like an obedient child agreeing to do whatever he said, or at the ground. She could not look at me. She did not want me to know she had finally admitted to having a problem. I acted oblivious to what the doctor said, hoping to restore my mother’s good mood before leaving. And it seemed to work.

I asked that she attend the meeting he’d set for her the next day and she agreed. When she was discharged, she asked me if I had an extra pair of pants, because she had made a mess of hers. In my car I found I’d only packed the purple flannel kitten print pyjamas I’d stolen from her years ago. She giggled as I gave them back and she dressed herself in them. It was really nice to finally see my mother remotely happy and accepting of at least some of her issues.

We went for dinner with my father and brother. All the while both boys seemed to be pushing her buttons. My niece and I both gave the boys shit for it. Both men have been treated like shit for the last few years, and they have learned to cope by joking, or poking fun at her. Habits die hard. But she had just gotten out of the hospital and she was taking the first step to getting better. It wasn’t the time. And personally, I found it awfully disgusting.

My niece and I left the island and were back in Squamish just after 11pm. I had to run into my office because all hell had broken out during the shift that was supposed to be mine. A little clean up help was needed. When I finally got home, I slept like someone had hit me over the head with a hammer. I was fucking exhausted.

The next morning I woke up and tried to call mom. I got my brother. Mom had taken to the bottle again. And instead of making her appointment she was out running around with my dad. He wasn’t supposed to know about the treatment, by her request so even though it had been whispered to him, he didn’t say a word about it.

I've talked to my mom twice since. She has called me. But she says nothing about the treatment, nothing about the appointments she misses. She simply thanks me for taking the time to be with her while she was in the hospital and talks like all is normal.

There are a lot of other areas of my life that have been moving rapidly, but I haven’t had the chance to clean my house let alone organize my thoughts on it all. All I can say is despite the depressing reality that is my family, life still looks good. The only complaint I really have is how much I miss my son.

I have been incredibly ill pretty much since my last posting here. A lot of funny little things have happened that I haven’t had the energy to write about. In particular, I’m talking about my mom and how strange she really has become.

Now that the mediation is over, and the papers are in the making, she’s acting like it’s a new beginning with my father. She’s friendly with him, has invited him on a trip to Thai Land after Christmas (she’s offering to pay – with money that was once theirs but is now hers), and is convinced that the two of them should start counselling. What makes all this strange is the fact that she’s spent the best part of the last two years insisting that she was leaving him, making his life hell, and fighting to separate all assets so that she has her own little piece. Don’t most couples consider counselling and vacations prior to legal separation of assets? Aren’t lawyers and courts, and mediators the last resort when all is said and done in a relationship? And does my mother have any real recollection of the shit she’s done in the past to her entire family? My father wants to stay on good terms with her, but as of now he still has no intention of getting romantically involved with her again.

My intuition says that they spent 15 years together, and chances are they will get back together soon enough – despite the fact that my mother is not the same woman she once was. My intuition says the habit of being with one another for so long is still under both of their skins and now, since my mother cannot pose any legal threat to my father, at least not once the papers are signed, they could find some sort of comfort in something similar to the norm they once shared.

In the meantime, my grandmother is pissed about the results of the mediation and how my mother ‘short-changed’ herself. And all the while she’s trying to convince my mom that the two of them should take a trip to Las Vegas together – which confirms our suspicions as to why grandma was of no help when my father and I tried to contact her as my mom’s symptoms started appearing a year and a half ago. If anything, that cunt helped convince my mother that she needed to separate from my dad and all her medical, psychological and addictive problems would vanish with him. The selfish bitch has only ever been looking out for herself and what she may get from the legal separation. I don’t believe I’ve ever known someone so evil in my life.

And perhaps the most bizarre of all, is my mother’s mention of Dubai, and my son. She’s mentioned she may buy both her and I tickets to back so we could visit my son. Of course, none of this was ever said to me and I myself am not ready to be in Dubai, and would weary of travelling there (or anywhere for that matter) with my mom. Who the hell knows what kind of problems she could cause? In the past year she has suggested kidnapping my baby and smuggling him out of the country more than once. That’s not something I’m interested in, and not something I would dare risk. And let’s not forget that chances are, my mom couldn’t get back into Dubai if she tried – as she’s got a credit card there she failed to pay. When this is mentioned to her, she insists that she gave me the money to pay it off, which of course is not true. In fact, she took out a bank loan here to pay it off, but I never saw a dollar of that money as she pissed it away with copious amounts of other money, while I continued to make payments on the card while I was in Dubai.

It’s all a big mess. And my words are coming out like little assholes, not one of them wanting to flow well with another. So I best stop writing now, before my fever fully takes over and I lose all thought.

...is what it’s costing my father to secure more than 2 million dollars in personal assets and his sanity, with the end of the mediation process which took place earlier today. It’s most likely also going to be what kills my mother.

It’s all almost over. An interim agreement has been signed while the legal papers are now in the process of being drawn up. The process took two lawyers and a mediator, in addition to my parents. My mother’s words were so incoherent that she had the room talking in circles more often than not, stating irrelevant nonsense as facts, such that according to her I am not living happily here in Squamish, but rather I’m living in Delta with some guy. Or that my father didn’t transfer more than $100,000 to my Dubai account for the purchase of my apartment but rather, just $10,000 dollars. All irrelevant details aside, it looks like this may actually be the start to the end. Just a few more weeks and all papers will be signed, and my mother will be 90K richer with no restrictions.

It’s not going to take her long to piss that away. She’ll drink it up, possibly take her mother to Reno or something like that, perhaps buy more crap that she doesn’t need and won’t ever open. My bet is, it will all be gone in a few short months – and that’s only if she doesn’t kill herself with it before she pisses it all away. And that is my worst fear.

It’s all really sad for me. I’m glad to learn it’s finally almost over. I’m glad my father isn’t going to lose anything he actually cares about. I’m mortified at the thought of my mother having such a large amount of money at her whim – we’ve seen how’s she’s reacted to mass amounts of money at her disposal during the last year and a half. It’s also heartbreaking that I know their relationship is beyond repair, and despite the promise to consider marriage counselling, my father has long since moved on now and is seeing someone else. And the damage my mother did to the entire family is beyond reconciliation. Selfishly, I can’t help but wonder if I’m going to lose my father now as when I moved off the island I recognized the fact that I’d already lost my mother to her insanity.

It scares me a little. Ok, it scares me a lot.

I had a great day today. But this news now... now, I’m not feeling so great at all.

Yesterday, I woke up and left for work as usual. It’s was just past 6am, and for the first time since I got here, I had to idle my car for a good 10 minutes so the ice, not frost but thin layer of ice, would melt off my windshield. It’s getting fucking cold. Soon, everything will be covered in a pristine white blanket of snow. I am not looking forward to it.

I pop into the UAE blogs less frequently these days. The stereotypical bullshit bores me. I can’t help but wonder where the curiosity, flare, even uniqueness of UAE bloggers have gone in general. I guess with the demise of the infamous blogs like Balushi, or Sex & Dubai, the entire community suffered. It’s a pity really, because once upon a time, the UAE blogging scene was entertainment. Or perhaps it’s just me and how much change I’ve been subjected to?

I’m finally learning the value of the dollar, and what it’s like to not really have enough. I’m finally learning that life really is what I make it. Which reminds me, if you have an hour or so, watch this clip and all the subsequent ones (if you haven’t already seen the movie):

This is the first of 12 or so clips on Youtube for the movie, ‘What the bleep do we know’.


My mom is still crazy, my dad is still fighting the battle. I believe right now, my mother is being charged with credit card fraud for using my dad’s credit card without his knowledge. It’s the card company themselves who are pressing the charges and not necessarily my father. In addition to all of that, there is question as to whether or not I’ll be selling my flat in Dubai. The expenses of the separation are far beyond what my father anticipated, and if it comes down to him having to sell off the million dollar house he worked his whole life for and just completed building, or me giving up some studio in Dubai, you can bet your ass I’ll let go of the flat. That may very well mean I’m heading back there sometime soon. It’ll be so good to see my son.

I miss him. I miss him more than words can describe. I want nothing more than to hug and hold him these days. I know he misses me too.

Whenever I think I’m starting to miss Dubai, Youtube is all I need:


Home sweet, home:

~*~
I don't know if this says more about Dubai, or the presenter here:
~*~
I should have learned to ski while I was there... Maybe then I'd have reason to drive 30 minutes north of here, and hit the slops!

“Skip is MIA,” He says to me on the phone, “Perhaps tomorrow I’ll see him and I’m sure he’ll give you a call.”

Skip is my brother’s father. He’s the man who raised me from the time I was 2, until I turned 12 or 13. He is an alcoholic, and that’s an understatement. If it’s there, Skip is willing to take it, whether it’s a drink, a pill, a needle, or a pipe. In his mid fifties, he’s already had a number of strokes and most recently there was a black, potentially cancerous spot found on his lung. None of it changes him. And under it all, the man has a heart of gold. He spent the majority of my first few months back here, apologizing and asking me for forgiveness for the childhood he allowed me to have. I had forgiven him before he even asked.

So it came as a shock that when the boy Skip initially introduced me to, threw me out so suddenly, Skip took his side over mine; refusing to talk to me. I literally told Skip to fuck right off and swore he wouldn’t hear from me until he was willing to offer an apology. Last week he mentioned me to a few friends. He said he’d tried to call but I’d changed my number, and asked them to have me call him. I tried, three times with no response.

So yesterday I wasn’t shocked to hear he was missing. It’s not abnormal for Skip to go missing for a few days in a row. I was shocked after that call when I spoke to my father and he said he’d seen my mom pissed drunk before noon, sitting outside the house with some guy and a case of beer. The guy he described could have been none other than Skip himself. Looks like my mom’s taking a step back more than 15 years in time. Just when you think things can’t get worse, there seems to be away.

Don’t get me wrong, I love both Skip and my mom. I hate the idea of them getting back together. My mom has been so much better than this for so many years it hurts to see her heading right back there now.

Other than this, life seems to be moving smoothly for me. I got myself a kitten and named him TwoSix. He’s a pain in the ass, but I love him just the same. It’s getting fucking cold here, and it’ll be nice for me to come home after work to warm house with a little one waiting for me. I have a second cat on the way. My niece’s cat had kittens a while back, and I’d already claimed mine when I took in TwoSix from some strange man standing outside the supermarket, threatening to leave him on the streets if I didn’t take him home. Soon, I’ll have a happy little family in my doll house.

May you all have a wonderful Eid.

I woke up this morning feeling down. It’s the first time I’ve felt like this since I got here and I’m not really sure what to make of it. I’ve worn myself these last few weeks, in particular, these last few days have been rough. Not only did I start working full 8 hour shifts, but I stupidly pulled an all-nighter on the first of my nights off, with a Breast Cancer Garage Sale Benefit to take part in the following morning. I managed through that, selling my jewellery with a smile on my face; the proceeds of which made up for a large portion of the charitable profits. That evening I had a house guest come and he only left yesterday morning as I was off to work at 6am.

Last night was the first full nights’ sleep I’ve had for about 4 days. I woke up this morning without an alarm, and I sit now with my coffee listening to the children giggle, as they walk by on their way to school. The sun is shining and the air is crisp. I’ve taken my vitamins, and I don’t work until 3pm this afternoon so I have ample time to clean my house and get a few odds and ends done. I have no real reason for feeling as crappy as I do.

My father is planning on coming out here for a visit soon. He and my mother are still in the process of separating, though my mother has once again taken a spin for the worst. She had taken a minimum wage job at some dollar store only to lose it with her first paycheque – with money for alcohol, who wants to go to work? From what I understand her lawyer is on the verge of dropping her since, who the hell can represent a crazy person who is incoherent enough when she’s strait, when she’s perpetually drunk? I’m so tired of the whole situation and I wish it would all just go back to the way it was in Dubai, when my mom was normal and my parents got along brilliantly. It’s heartbreaking really.

I have little other than that to share right now. Perhaps as the day moves on, I’ll start to feel a little better, since really there’s nothing stopping me excepting me.

I was woken last night just after 1am to the sound a train thundering through my yard. The tracks are just a few feet beyond my fence, and every time the train goes by my whole house shakes, like a mini earthquake interrupted only by the sound of the trains whistle blowing. It sucks. My first few nights here the last train on the day seemed to go by at 9.40pm – which totally isn’t a problem. But for two days now they have been creeping up into the wee hours of the morning. The night before last, it was 11.30, and last night quarter past 1. If a train goes by at 3am tonight, I think I’m going to wake up crying.

But seeing how the time of the train is my only real stress around here so far, I really shouldn’t complain. I’ve moved into my own place. It’s a dollhouse. Actually, as the landlord explained, she initially built it for her children as a playhouse but accidently built it too big for that. She then decided to add a bathroom and half kitchen and rent it out. It’s a tiny little cabin with a loft upstairs. It’s perfect for the little girl that I am, and will be even better when I get my python back and keep him as the guard-pet!

Life is treating me real well. I haven’t had a lot of time for the net lately, thus the lack of posts or entertaining stories shared. I would like to wish all a Happy Ramadhan, forgive me for being late.

It was just before midnight when I snuck out the front door for a cigarette. Giddily talking on the phone I obliviously sat in the chair just next to the small garden and listened to the pouring rain in the background. “If I get eaten by a bear I’m blaming you,” I told him. If he hadn’t have called, I’d have still been snuggled up in my bed, a cigarette the furthest thing from my mind. To my left I heard rummaging, “There’s a coon, bear or cougar in the neighbour’s garage. I can hear him thumping around the garbage bins in there.” In the pitch of the night, I couldn’t see a thing beyond the car port just 15 feet away. As the thumping and rummaging continued, I stood starting to worry about what unseen creature was so close to me going about his business. Stretching my eyes as far as they could go, I peered into the darkness. After a few moments of silence my nerves got the best of me. I crushed my full cigarette in the garden and stepped back into the door frame of the house, one hand on the door ready to close in a moment’s notice.

Within seconds a black bear appeared from behind a car. “There’s a bear! Oh my god, there’s a bear and it’s the first time I have seen one this close up,” I whispered in a hurried voice into the phone. He must have weighed just 350 or so pounds. He was a little bear, the size I like to think of as a teenager. In his mouth he carried a small sandwich bag. The neighbours must have left the bear lock on their garbage undone. As I stood in the doorway he casually sauntered across our yard, not 6 feet away from me, stopping only next to the tiny tree in the yard to our right. He sat down with his prize and pawed at it for a while. Deciding it wasn’t what he wanted or devouring the contents, he picked himself up and this time walked back to his treasure chest of goods. He made his way back into the black of the garage and disappeared for a moment before the thumping and rummaging started again. Something spooked him, and he dashed out of the black and up behind my parked car, proving how quick he could be if needed.

With a bear that spooked and that close I decided it best to go into the house, closing the door behind me. I made my way to the balcony on the second floor where I watched as another neighbour switched on her balcony light and shot a flashlight through the streets. “He’s in Mike’s yard,” I shouted. Once she spotted him, she let me know and started calling her kitty. I watched the bear make his way back across the streets, and behind a house, certainly on his way to the comforts of his woodsy home.

I wasn’t sure if the boy on the phone believed me. And since he was driving across Canada at the time for work, the phone connection wasn’t all that great. Eventually, while I still gazed at this majestic wildlife in our front yard the phone had disconnected. We didn’t talk to one another until he was a few hours from visiting me here, yesterday.

So last night before dusk we sat on the porch eating, drinking and enjoying the company of a few friends. “Oh my goodness you guys, the bear is back,” Emily pointed to the apple tree in the back yard just 10 feet below us and a few feet away. We closed the balcony gate and watched as an even larger bear then the one I’d seen the night before, perhaps 500 pounds of him, swiped up an apple off the ground and put it in his mouth. He casually made his way across the yard where the real treat was left for him. We’d left a bucket of raked apples meant for the compost next to the green house. All the children in the house watched through a window as the bear sat with the bucket between his legs and feasted on the sugary treats. There was no disbelieving for the boy on the phone now.

Being this close to nature at its finest is one of the blessings of being here in BC. It truly is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. And there’s nowhere else on the planet I’d rather be right now.

Karma is a bitch, I wish I knew what I did to deserve this shit storm... He asked me to leave and I did. When someone else he knows shows interest in me, he says he’s fine by it. When I’m seen in public with that someone else, shit hits the fan and my life becomes a soap-opera again. I’m not even on the fucking island and I’m the center of attention.

My father and mother are separating and it’s certain. She’s been in touch with a lawyer who since got in touch with my father’s lawyer. I’ll end up having to testify and that’s fine. The truth will not work in my mother’s favour but the way I see it, she hates me so much without any reason anyway, what more can the truth cause? With any luck, I’ll at least be able to help my father out. Any financial gain she takes away from this separation will be pissed away on alcohol, lawyers’ fees and whatever random crap she decides to pick up from junk shops along the way. She’s already been selling off her gold and pearls to feed her habits. It disgusts me to know what’s she’s done, what she’s attempting to do, and where it’s all going to lead. I wish I knew how my mother became what she is today, and I dread the day I become the same.

I’ve been here just over a week. I haven’t taken a single anti-depressant pill and I feel fantastic – despite the drab things that seem to be happening in my life. I’m well on my way to finding a job and generally, I’m happy. Let’s hope it stays that way.

What the hell goes on in that head? -- Photography again by Sam C.

Most successful people seem to have a story of poverty in their past. Some of the more famous stories always seem to start with something like, “I hitchhiked into town with fifty bucks in my wallet and the clothing on my back...” and they end with, “Today, I’m a content multibillionaire.” Though my childhood was plagued with alcoholism and poverty, I wonder that I’ll never get that chance again. I’ve built and been blessed with too many security blankets and people that seem to love to save me.

Sunday, I leave the island broken-hearted with more than fifty dollars in my wallet and a car that’s insured in my name – with everything I own on the western content packed into the back. But the intent of leaving the island is to truly start over – and this time, with as little outside help as possible. True, my father lent me the money to insure the car (which used to be my mother’s until her license was suspended for being a drunk with epilepsy & other mental conditions). He is also lending me more money to make sure I have enough to start up, to put a down payment on a house and tide me over until I find work. On top of that, I still get rent paid to me from my apartment in Dubai, and alimony as well. And I’m not going to a town I’ve never seen. I’m heading to Squamish, where the one sister who actually has her head on right, lives with her husband and twin children. Perhaps I’ll never be able to start a story like the many famous successful people. But I will be successful & I will find contentment.

Perhaps, I’ll even get to writing that damn book I’ve been thinking about?

Some anonymous dickhead who got a hard-on for me on another site decided to tell me what my problem was in comments here earlier today. Oh feeble minded anonymous and those like you, please allow me to make it easier for you by pointing out what my fucking problems are, so you can gladly copy & paste them in the future and be at least remotely accurate in your findings.

My biggest problem is myself. I’m a fucking cunt, not only to you but also to me. There is NOTHING you can say to me that I haven’t already told myself. I suffer a number of psychological disorders, I grew up in an alcoholic family, I have been molested more than once. I seek love in the wrong places from the wrong types of men. I cut myself. I snap, and have attempted to commit suicide (and murder) on more than one occasion. I burn way too many bridges and I find it really hard to forgive. I have to take pills to get my pitiful ass out of bed most mornings. I over-analyze just about everything. I don’t trust people, and I don’t trust myself. I make piss-poor decisions. I judge harshly, and I’m even a little racist not to mention bias concerning some things. I’m a little over weight and on the verge of becoming anorexic, my mother lost her mind and thinks I’m the antichrist. My son is on the other side of the planet, and I have made a miserable mess of my whole fucking life.

I never should have been born in the first place. But guess what dickhead, I was. And I’m not going anywhere real quick, and most certainly not because you believe the world would be a better place if it only existed of people as oblivious of themselves as you are. I may be a royal fuck up, but I know myself and I know along with all these ‘problems’ (that many, many more people face without even realizing), I’m also more intelligent than your average twat, more loved than most online trolls, more intuitive, more artistic, more creative, funnier, more accepting, kinder, bolder, stronger, with a broader view of the world, and I have a brilliant future waiting me. I excel in everything I do!

I’m 27 years old and I’m well on my way to fixing my problems, thanks to the fact that I realize they exist. Maybe instead of telling other’s what you think their problems are, you should spend more time asking yourself what the fuck your own problems are and counting your fucking virtues.

I realized the other day a fair number of my girlfriends met their boyfriend’s, fiancé’s, or husbands online. It got me thinking, I haven’t met many new people here since I got back, period. It seems as though society as a whole is making its way to the internet. TV commercials here are littered with advertisements for dating, connection, and socializing sites such as eharmony.com, or plentyoffish.com. Is this today’s and our future’s way of connecting with people? Is society as it once was dying?

Growing up, I never had problems meeting people or making friends. It’d be a lie to say I have such problems now. Perhaps it isn’t me that’s cutting herself off from the world, perhaps it’s the world cutting itself off from anyone who isn’t online? I met a friend of mine for coffee yesterday. As I stood in line waiting to order my coffee, I overheard a girl chatting on her mobile, “They sent me the same thing on facebook!” Her whole conversation seemed to be about her life online. My friend arrived with her baby and we pulled up a few chairs outside. The girl on the phone sat alone on the bench, waiting I guess, for the phone to ring again. She seemed out of place without a laptop in front of her. She seemed out of place, alone in a coffee shop like Starbucks without a drink, with a little bit of an empty look on her face. I wondered if I looked the same when I ventured out alone.

Is the internet making it hard for us to socialize? Is it making it harder for us to be a functioning society? Are online dating sites worth checking out? Is there a stigma attached to relationships that are formed online? Could there be any romance in it at all?

Five or ten minutes after I hung up the phone with my dad, the phone rang again and the call display showed my ‘Canada House – Puckle’. He was explaining to me that my mother got the results of her EEG and the doctors have found signs of Epilepsy. They refused to act on it because she has not had a seizure that she can remember in the last month or so. There’s some hope that much of what she’s been going through and putting us through have been physical after all. No doubt at all, any and all symptoms were increased thanks to her severe alcoholism. He told me she seemed to be doing better these days. She was looking for work, asking about insuring the car (though he will never agree because it’s down-right out dangerous to let her drive) and relatively positive about the idea of visiting some of her old friends.

For the past 10 or so months my mother’s hate for me has seemed to increase. A week or so back, my sister was visiting from the mainland and got to spend a day with her shopping. They planned a BBQ for the evening and when my sister mentioned that she was calling to invite me, my mom responded with, “Fine, she can come, but I’m leaving.” The fight was on, because my sister, my father and my brother know that I have done nothing to encourage this deep a hate from her. My mother’s feeble attempts to defend her opinion were drowned out by her psychotic behaviour and words. She had just called and asked to talk to me a week prior while I was with my sister, as normal. Nothing had changed in that week.

So when the phone rang this time showing her house, I assumed it was my brother calling. I answered and was shocked to hear her voice. She was talking as though all was normal, as though she hadn’t hated me for reasons unknown to me. She told me about her EEG results, she told me about her job hunt she even invited me out for coffee sometime. At the end of the conversation she said, “I’m glad we got this chance to talk.” As if for some reason she felt she could not call me up at any time previously, like I had somehow cut ties with her and not the complete opposite.

I still don’t know what to make of the conversation. I am not sure how to feel about it, or what is going on through her head. I do now know that my father was distant from her yesterday, busy with his own things and giving himself a break from the insanity. Perhaps she was just that lonely. Perhaps she’s half snapped back into reality. Perhaps, the ice I heard in the background was her first drink of the day and getting drunk alone is never any fun. Who knows.

The international documentaries made on Dubai are careful with their camera work. It’s rare that you’ll see the skyline, littered with cranes and construction workers almost dangling from their deaths tens of stories up, without harnesses. The architecture looks brilliant on the outside. Sleek glass windows, buildings so tall from the ground you imagine they touch the stars at night, marble flooring, and in some of the higher-class hotels, faucets plated in pure gold. Look a little deeper and you’ll see the walls are cracking under the paint less than a year after construction was completed, the wiring is a mess causing random mini-explosions, plumbing backs up and the building itself is no more stable than a shack.

I fell into the trap of buying an apartment in Dubai. It wasn’t a month later that, that the air conditioner (a vital instrument for living in the UAE) stopped working. It wasn’t two months in when the toilet decided to continually flush itself with a constant rush of water making its way through the bowl, increasing my electricity and water bills to shocking amounts. It was the very first week I was there, that the pipes under my sink broke and my kitchen flooded. So very pretty on the outside, but its core is complete and utter crap. Still, that lovely little piece of property is worth about 33% more now, two years later then it was when I purchased it. Why? The illusion of Dubai is simply that grand!

Life in Dubai is much the same as most of these buildings. It is picture perfect on the outside, but disturbed at its core. Visit Dubai for a week and you’ll fall in love; stay there a few years and you’ll learn to despise just about everything about it. Dubai teaches you one thing really well, and that’s how to become a plastic person. The only problem with being plastic is, plastic can’t comfort your heart – nor can the plastic people you end up surrounded by. Material things take lead, while arts, emotions, anything that makes us human is forced on the back burner.

There isn’t a proper jazz club in Dubai. There isn’t a coffee shop where one can go and watch local talent, whether it be stand up, poetry readings or even a play. All of Dubai’s entertainment is imported for a short while – long enough to put on a show or two, then sent back home. In a place that populated, there has to be talent there somewhere. But who is actually looking for it? Who is willing to embrace it? And who is able to hold on to their own talents while the whims of personal belongings, and picture perfect life charades are taking over everything they do?

In the 12 years I lived in Dubai, outside of English class in school I met only one poet. He was a brilliant writer and most likely could have made something of himself on that talent alone. But he was Indian. And life in Dubai taught him that wasn’t ok. For months he lied to me and everyone he knew, taking on an assumed local identity, concentrating more on what people thought of him and how he could further deceive us of his roots, than he possibly could his writing. I don’t imagine he’s writing still. I don’t even know if I ever actually learned his first name. But he was a talent Dubai and Dubai’s society lost out on.

Dubai is an illusion. From the fairytale cities, to the Barbie-doll type people, there is no real life there; just plastic, paint and a decaying core.

It’s not just skin deep.
~*~


Thank you Sam C. for the photography.

160 of those pounds are the boy I just walked away from. The rest is all me...

Since the start of this uproar, I haven’t been able to eat. Initially, I tried to force-feed myself only to realize that just made me feel over-bloated and worse than I already felt. Soon, I decided not to fight it. This was the silver lining to my cloud, the good bit that’s coming out of this breakup. I look better, I don’t feel half as fat, and I’m able to fit into a bunch of old clothing that I haven’t worn for months. And it was all in a matter of a few weeks.

I’m starting to worry about it though now. Sometimes, I’ll go for two and a half days without eating a thing. It’s only when I remember that I haven’t eaten in so long that I’m able to force myself to eat half a cup of soup and maybe a piece of bread, or so. And now, when I put anything in my stomach, I automatically want to vomit. I try lying down for a while after I eat. I try drinking lots of water. Nothing takes away the queasiness food seems to give me.

I wonder if this is the start of one of those crappy eating diseases like anorexia or bulimia. No matter how much I feel like I want to throw up right now, I refuse to allow myself to out of fear of becoming bulimic. But forgetting or being unable to eat for days may very well be the start of anorexia. I don’t want or need such an added issue in my life – but I’m willing to bet this is going to end up being my next big challenge. Food feels like an enemy now. It's hard to make yourself do something that feels so shitty.

Always got to be something going on in my life... It’s really starting to suck.

By midnight, there was an attempt at murder/suicide that resulted in bruised arms and a gaping hole in the leather couch. By 3am the most passionate love making was being had.

Passion is a beautiful, and yet scary thing.

I still left the house the next day – taking all my belongings with me. I will never turn back. What I’m doing next, is up in the air.