Life – Page 7 – Nicolas Demers

They loved the t-shirts, but the fridge magnets were a hard sell

It was the August long weekend so you know what that means? The Vancouver Pride parade. The sun was shining, the rainbow balloons were floating, the leather queens were buff and be-harnessed. The idea this year was to have a moving game: a few players would bump the ball around while two held up the net, and a few more would run around giving out free junk to the crowds. We were supposed to (a) watch out for the overhead wires, and (b) not do any hard hits, because the ball would go into the crowd and someone might get hurt. Which happened many times anyways, though nobody was ever hurt. Besides, the crowd loved the spikes and hard hits. Hey, you gotta give the people what they want.

I played for a while, then switched off to hand out goodies. And, hah, part of me flashed back to those days of yore when little hypershy me had to sell chocolate bars for the scouts. Let’s face it: everybody wanted the t-shirts, but the fridge magnets? Not so much. I had to be a bit more assertive and in-your-face to move those suckers. Plus, we ran out of t-shirts early on while we still had stacks of the magnets at the end. Which reminds me, I should have gotten one for myself. Oh, but we also had some bitchin’ press-on tattoos with the VGVA logo and Web site; I put a couple on myself, and they made me feel all tough and butch.

Yeah, it was an awesome day. But afterwards I was exhausted, sweaty and disgusting. They’d asked us to wear league t-shirts, but maybe I should have thought twice about wearing this year’s colour. Because dark purple and blazing sun don’t really mix.

Terra Firma

Hey, that was interesting.

I took the SkyTrain into Surrey today, which means going over the Fraser River. And I always got kind of twitchy doing that because I’m afraid of heights, and there’s nothing like guard rails on that bridge. It was just too easy to imagine myself (and all the other commuters) falling down, down, down into the water and then sinking down, down, down to the bottom of the river. I’m not really sure how deep it is, but the point is: down. I’ve skytrained into Surrey a couple of times in the last few weeks, though before that I hadn’t done it in a long time. And something was different today: I didn’t get nervous going over the water, not at all. I just gazed down at the river in perfect serenity.

Here’s the secret: I’ve been gradually desensitising myself against acrophobia. My new job is on the 9^th floor of a downtown high-rise building (sometimes taking me as high as the 16^th); at least once a day I stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows, and just… look down. (And sometimes out. We’ve got a nice view of False Creek.) It’s a bit dizzying, and definitely disorienting to look down at other buildings and see the people walking around like ants. But it’s worth it. The little flutter in my stomach isn’t gone yet, though it’s much easier to ignore. And apparently it’s totally gone when I’m less than nine storeys above the ground (or the water). Très cool.

Now that I think about it, I never got the chance to get used to heights until I started this job. There are no high-rises out in the boonies (well, there are a few near downtown Coquitlam, but not where I live); ditto for my old job, in East Van. Ditto for school. What’s the tallest building at Simon Fraser? The AQ, with six floors? I only went there a handful of times, mainly to get cool photos of the North Shore mountains. There was the zip-lining thing, in which I stared down the fear, but it didn’t make it go away. This will, though. I’m learning that patience and perseverance is the key to fears and hangups.

Heh. Maybe I should get into the self-help industry.

Riding The Rails

16:59. I sit on the train, looking out at the water and the mountains. As we come up to Second Narrows, I see dozens of crows flying about and perching on the trees. Yep, it’s that time of day. Hi, guys. Long time no see.

I was laid off last September, and spent the next few months looking for work. I haven’t written about it because… well, it just wasn’t that exciting to live through, and wouldn’t have been much fun to write about. Maybe some other time. But all’s well that ends well, and I’m again gainfully employed. This is the fourth week of my new job, and it’s been pretty interesting so far. A different culture (much larger and established company), different technologies, and a different routine, which honestly I’m still adjusting to. But on the whole it’s a positive experience, and part of that is my commute: for my new job is downtown, which means taking the West Coast Express.

And this train kicks so much ass. No more fighting rush hour traffic, all by myself in my car. I can relax, sit down, buy a muffin, listen to my iPod and read (or I would, if I weren’t so prone to motion sickness) and/or chat with friends and coworkers. And I’m magically whisked from the boonies to downtown (and back again, in the evening) in just over half an hour.

Best of all, I get to see the sights. Part of me feels like a tourist discovering Vancouver for the first time. Some things I’m familiar with: Burrard Inlet shrouded in early-morning fog; the North Shore mountains topped with snow, tinged orange-pink in the sunrise; the twinkly lights of North Vancouver. But I’m close to the water, and there are things I get to see close up, or from a different perspective. The ducks on the shore, completely unafraid of the big noisy metal thing rushing by. Passing under the Second Narrows Bridge. The big-ass cranes in the harbour, surrounded by containers from all over the world. The old sugar refinery, which for the longest time I thought was abandoned. The West Coast Reduction plant. The Shellburn Oil Refinery with its tall chimneys next to Burnaby Mountain. The sulfur storage facilities in Port Moody—which as far as I can tell consists only of honkin’ great piles of sulfur amidst the machinery. I’m not even clear how they transport it to and from the place. It has to be by train, though, since I can see streaks and piles of bright yellow on parallel tracks for a couple of miles westward.

Great stuff. Maybe I’ll get jaded someday, but right now it’s all new and fascinating.

Mind you, I also get to see decaying, graffiti’d building fronts as we get nearer downtown, with homeless people peeing in corners or sleeping in doorways. I’ve seen those sights enough times walking down Granville Street or driving through the East Side. It’s not all pretty scenery or productive industry. But, that’s part of my city too, and I won’t ignore it.

2006: The Year In Review

Lowlight: the flight back from Ottawa in early January. The plane took off late, landed to refuel in Calgary (or Edmonton, I forget) for a bit without letting us out, crying children, constant turbulence especially over the Rockies…

Highlight: repainting my condo over the summer.

Lowlight: the flight back from Ottawa in early January. The plane took off late, landed to refuel in Calgary (or Edmonton, I forget) for a bit without letting us out, crying children, constant turbulence especially over the Rockies… I was hot, vaguely claustrophobic and definitely nauseous (if I hadn’t loaded up on Gravol™, I’m sure I would have puked) and it was the longest 35 hours of my life. Oh, sure, my watch says it was only 7 hours, but I know better.
Highlight: repainting my condo over the summer. I got a colour consultant from Benjamin Moore to put a palette together, but I bought all the materials and did all the work myself. It was a huge project even though my place isn’t that big, but it gave me such a sense of accomplishment.
Lowlight: Being laid off in September, and spending the next 3+ months looking for work and feeling sorry for myself. But that turned out to be a blessing in disguise, because it gave me the kick in the pants I needed to start figuring out where I wanted my career to go. My previous job, interesting and challenging and enjoyable as it was, didn’t have many opportunities for advancement, and didn’t give me experience in technologies that boost my resume. I liked the work, the work environment and the coworkers, and I guess I was… comfortable there. Given the choice, I probably wouldn’t have left on my own. Yet in hindsight, I’m glad it happened.
Highlight: Getting a new job, which will start January 8^th. It’s quite an interesting one (software development for a high-profile consulting/outsourcing corporation) with lots of cool technologies to play with and more opportunities for advancement than my old job. The salary’s a bit lower since I’m starting over in a junior position, but that’s okay. This is much better for my career, both short- and long-term than my old job.
Highlight: For various reasons I didn’t go back East this year (my first holidays away from home), but I had some fabu parties with local friends, on Xmas Eve, Xmas Day and New Year’s Eve. There was Monopoly and gifts and caviar and inappropriate touching and Dance Dance Revolution and Harry Potter Scene It™ (I’m not actually a fan, but most of the people at the New Year’s party were). Good times.

So there you go. Overall, 2006 was a pretty good year. Certainly a lot better than 2005. Now looking forward to 2007! Happy New Year, bonne et heureuse année to all.

The Long Night

Hey, the power’s back on.

So as you may have heard, there were massive windstorms in my neck of the woods, causing about 250,000 people (according to BC Hydro) to go without power. I was one of those people. Starting some time Thursday night to around noonish Friday, my appartment building (and indeed, my entire neighbourhood) had zero electricity. Then we had partial power in the building. The lights kind of worked—noticeably dimmer than usual, but good enough to read by—and we had some heat. But no elevators, no hot water, no major appliances and no cable. It could have been worse. As of last night there were still chunks of my neighborhood without any power at all.

It’s been an interesting day and a half. I walked to the mall yesterday, partly to shop and partly to soak in as much sunlight as I could. It was sunny but cold, and the wind was still really strong—what my forebears might call «un vent à écorner les bœufs.» Still, I was grateful for the sun, since I knew it’d get dark very soon. And man, without streetlights it really gets dark.

In hindsight, I really wasn’t prepared for a longer power failure. I had very little food that I could eat without a microwave (thank gawd the nearby Quizno’s had power by Friday evening—mmm, Teriyaki barbecue sub), not enough blankets, and no flashlight. On the plus side, without the TV and computer to distract me (they weren’t getting enough juice), I was free to get most of the way through Foucault’s Pendulum.

Dancin’ Fool

Went to a little Dance Dance Revolution party last night, and it was a blast. I’d never played DDR before or, really, given it much thought; the few times I’ve been in arcades since it came out I much preferred to shoot at zombies or terrorists, or revisit the old-school games I grew up with (you know, back when arcade games only cost 25¢ each).

But it turns out this pretend dancing is a lot of fun too. And, after a bit of practice, I actually got pretty good—consistently better than almost everybody else there. I don’t know if it’s because I was used to worrying about footwork from Taijiquan practice, or just that we homosexuals have natural rhythm (we do, right?). Although when the night was over my legs were more tired than I expected, way more than they should have been from dancing in brief two-minute bursts separated by long breaks. But then DDR consists only of very short, quick movements, probably using different muscles than real dancing. I guess nothing can prepare you for it except… playing DDR.

Afterwards some of us watched the South Park episode You Got F’d in the A (from the newly-released Season 8 DVD set), the one with the dance-off and Butters horribly killing lots of people. Man, that was a great ep.

Dianetics at the PNE

I went to the PNE last night, for the first time in a couple of years. Amongst the numerous vendors of household implements, cheap wallets and miracle stain removers at the marketplace were a few psychics, promising insight on your future, love life and financial situation for a modest fee. And, a Dianetics booth. The people there—who, it must be said, didn’t seem at all creepy or crazy—kept asking people if they wanted a stress test. I heroically resisted the urge to ask them how their pseudo-therapy was working on Tom Cruise.

One of my friends did get his palms read, purely for entertainment purposes. Which I considered doing myself, but I didn’t want to encourage the psychics by giving them my attention and money. (Mind you, I do occasionally buy the Weekly World News myself, when it has an especially outrageous cover story. The Garden of Eden being found in Colorado is one of my favourites. Apparently they even found two skeletons, one male and one female. Of course, the male skeleton was missing a rib!)

They printed out his chart—actually, two charts, one for the present and near future, one for the more distant future—which included some pretty diagrams of all the lines and regions on the hand, their connections to astrological signs and so on. His computer-generated scores in various areas of life (a) were really not that accurate, and (b) seemed to change more or less randomly between the two charts. But I guess the suckers who believe this stuff will assign special meaning to it anyways, ignore or forget the misses, and think they’ve spent their money wisely.

The Day I Kept Volleying To Myself While Wearing a Feather Boa

…while accompanied by a woman dressed like a volleyball and a man wearing an itty-bitty speedo, with volleyballs painted on his ass cheeks.

Yes kids, it was Pride Day, and I walked with the VGVA posse. Since most of them were in Montreal for the Gay Games, it was a pretty small production this year, just a small truck with rainbow balloons and streams and music… nothing too special. We handed out little rubber bracelets with the VGVA Website on them, sprayed people with water, and I practiced my setting for the enjoyment of the people. Well, and also my own enjoyment.

Incidentally, a feather boa isn’t the best accessory to play volleyball in, especially when it’s, like, a hundred degrees. I was surprised at how warm those things are, at least around the neck. Gads, I don’t know how drag queens do it, I really don’t, with the dresses and the wigs and the accessories. How did they even keep their makeup in place, in yesterday’s heat? Laura (the human volleyball) had a bit of mascara on, and by the end of the parade it was running all over the place. But I had lots of fun. It was a nice change to be in the parade instead of watching it. On the one hand, I could only check out the floats just in front and behind us. On the other, I got to dance and play in front of all the people crowded along Denman and Pacific. Though I wasn’t exactly the centre of attention (see above, re: speedo, volleyball ass cheeks) it was a powerful experience to a formerly very shy, now not-quite-so-shy, guy such as myself.

Suddenly it’s a popular destination

I was hit three times in the groin while playing volleyball yesterday. All these years and I’ve been knocked on my ass, bopped in the nose or the back of the head, twisted a couple of ankles and really hurt my fingers when I tried to volley hard serves, but never received a volleyball in the groin even once, never mind three times in one afternoon. Totally accidental… or so they said.

Anyways, there’s no harm done. The balls weren’t going all that fast, and in most cases I was able to block most of the force. Turns out I’ve got lightning-quick reflexes when I need them. My bits are safe to play another day. Although I am considering buying a codpiece, just to be sure.

A Wedding in Sooke

For the second time in three weeks I was on the Island; not in Tofino but the little town of Sooke, for my friend Nathan’s wedding. It was a very nice ceremony, nothing fancy, with Sooke Harbour as a gorgeous backdrop. Which became a grey and rainy backdrop the following day, so we really lucked out.

Five of us stayed in a lovely bed & breakfast for the weekend. The scenery was beautiful, the amenities spotless, the breakfasts yummy beyond description. The only irritant was one of the owners, who turned out to be a hardcore evangelical Christian. I only found this out the evening after Nathan’s wedding, when we’d all gone back to the B&B to relax, and he struck up a conversation with Jon, one of our friends who I knew was also a devout Xian (but, to his credit, had never preached to me). I was upstairs, trying to lose myself in Stephen Baxter’s excellent Exultant but I couldn’t tune out the harsh dogma, talk of “church-planting” and other bizarre jargon. Finally I couldn’t take any more, and went for a walk. I headed down the Galloping Goose trail, got bored by the lack of scenery, so I decided to explore a trail following Ayum Creek down to the water. That was a lot more interesting, and washed away the unpleasant taste of dogmatism. Plus, it gave me some very nice pictures.

Things got sour again the next morning as we were heading out. Sandra, an elementary school teacher and very politically active, got into an argument with the aforementioned Xian about the upcoming strike vote and teacher’s demands. He was absolutely opposed to the strike action (and, it seemed, pretty much any social activism), self-righteously accused the teachers of being greedy, and other equally insulting arguments. Sandra held her own but was getting visibly upset by the guy’s assholish attitude, so I stepped in. Partly out of chivalry, partly because I agreed with Sandra’s position, and partly because I enjoy a good argument every now and then. But it’s a good thing we were on our way out.

To be fair: we didn’t see much of him until our last morning, and his wife was extremely nice. Still, there’s no way I’m staying there again.)

Some more pictures over here!