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Old Feb 22, 2025, 01:44 PM
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JaneOnceMore JaneOnceMore is offline
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Member Since: Feb 2023
Location: Ontario; long-time member, just under other names
Posts: 778
My friend and i are texting, cooking up a conspiracy theory. I forgot how much fun this is. We used to do this all the time in Vancouver. A couple guys had a radio show on Vancouver Public Radio and they would get high and one would get really loose and start spouting the theories. It was great fun.

The more savvy one would just laugh and say, "How do YOU know THAT?" It was all about the NATO war in the Balkans in 1999. I must say, this provacateur really did his homework. I saw him at The Vancouver Library researching his theories. He was a really cool guy.

There was a rumor that he'd been stabbed by a rival activist group, but i saw him the next day from the library steps i was sitting on, just strolling down the street, seemingly without pain from the "stabbing incident." We just nodded at each other. I guess he knew i'd found him out, and that the "stabbing" was a hoax.

What a character he was. He blackballed me from joining his political collective, so i wouldn't say we were on good terms. He was ableist. I didn't appreciate it as i was new in town and wanted to make friends. His second-in-command and i got on famously and even the guy's little toddler daughter kissed me, just because i paid attention to her, played with her.

The adults in her life were really dismissive of her. Too bad, she was a delightful little girl, they really missed out. The Second and i flirted, but i was too sick to follow thru. Opportunity lost, he was a really sensual young black activist.

I told him i'd been distracted in an interview for a volunteer position because all i could think of was where i wanted to lick him! Hahaha! Christ, i'd say anything in those days. He responded to my vibe tho and asked for my number.

His daughter had a tantrum right then so he had to attend to her and did not take my phone number down. Rats. This was one sexy, astute, intriguing young black man. He said he found my written application for the political collective "funny," which it was, as i said i sued people for fun and profit, and i had run for a federal left wing political party, "until i came to my senses." He really "got me," we were really on the same wavelength.

This political collective was REALLY far left, like so far, they were out on the lunatic fringe. Maybe for the best that they rejected me. I stayed away after the stabbing hoax, and got involved in activities in my neighborhood, which was for the best, being a political activist was a stressor i certainly didn't need.

I had a great time at the weekend Farmer's Market, doing arts-and-crafts with the kids, i did cartwheels down at the sloping banks of False Creek (the waterway, not the neighborhood), i had fun at The Strawberry Festival, i had a good time at the open house for the AIDS hospice, where i was given a coupon for hugs, i had a swell time shopping the free-or-cheap attic store in the community center, i had a good time eating at the diner at the community center diner, i had a ball attending The Pride Parade...

My life in Vancouver had so much more MEANING. It was so dangerous tho. Main and Hastings, drug hub central, just a few blocks away, no privacy, home ownership out-of-reach by leaps and bounds...

Overall, it was wiser to move back East, but i sure miss the electric vibe of Vancouver, and in time i would have adjusted to the hectic nature of the city. I was so sick then, it just wasn't an obstacle i could face at that time. I have roots here in this city, it's where i did my university degree, where i had my career, where i had my marriage, where i crashed-and-burned.

And who knows, there is a guy in this city who i am keen on reconnecting with as he is the most extraordinary person i have ever known, and while i stay here, there is the possibility that i could lure him to me for coffee or something else benign.

He's currently off Facebook, so i have no way to contact him, but i used to see him around the neighborhood mall, and it comforts me to know he is not too far away. He has roots here too, so i doubt he is going anywhere. Someday we might reconnect...

I sure miss him. He's married with a grown son, so it's nothing romantic. Just feels good to know there's someone in the city who "gets me," and moves faster than i do, and can teach me things, just by associating with him.

He has this appealing contempt for all of humanity, that i share. He has a twin brother, who is also cool, tho less stable than he is. I miss the both of them, how they used to howl with laughter when i'd see the both of them together and be dumbstruck as they are unusually handsome identical male twins, and such compelling, judgmental people, like me.

Even our speech pattern is the same. I feel such a connection to them, i hate to think our story is over, as we haven't associated since 1996, when the stronger one of them and i worked together. Christ, he was brilliant. I used to pour over his code on the commute home from work. The next day i'd day, "Hey, i finally understood your code fragment!" He'd say, "It doesn't work!"

I'd be flummoxed. What works in computer code in theory doesn't always work in practice. His theories were great, but when it came to performance, and interface design, my apps were as good as his.

They just didn't look as good under-the-hood, but what user cares about the quality of computer code? So i hard-coded, so i nested stuff seven levels deep because i couldn't write in functions!

I was an Arts Grad after all. For an Arts Grad i coded just fine. It's not like i had ANY education in computer science. Users just care about their own experience of the app. I'd put my apps up against educated computer scientists anytime!!!

Last edited by JaneOnceMore; Feb 22, 2025 at 02:04 PM.
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