Boys Eat Dirt

One of my older sisters came down today for the long weekend, and we were all making a bit of a plan for our trip to Vancouver next week for the concert. Next thing we knew, we were talking about how it’s the first time we are doing something together in a while. I mean I’ll hang out with my sisters, but usually its one at a time sort of thing.

My sister Phalon is pretty close to my age. She’s only a year older (except people constantly think that she’s younger than me). Then my next sister, Paige, is seven years older than me.

Somehow we got talking about some of the stunts that my sister Phalon and I got into when we were younger since we were so close in age.

When we were really young (I think I was going on 4 years old), and just moved to this town, I was playing outside in the dirt with my sister. My sister started telling me that I should eat some of the dirt. But being a smart almost 4 year old, I knew something was awry. So I inquired, “Why?”.

Her response to my question was something like, ” Well because all boys eat dirt!”

Of course being the much smarter, younger brother, I added, “But I never saw dad eating any dirt.”

Then came the trickery, and probably what scarred me to be the odd person I am today. My sister told me, “That’s because he does it at work with all the other boys that work there.”

So I ate dirt.

The moral of the story:

Girls are evil.

Sisters are evil.

I guess I was a little evil too as a child, but my sister was always right there by my side doing the same too. Heck, she probably egged half of it on like that dirt eating incident.

I remember our first neighbors when we moved here. They were always pretty nice at first, but after a couple of years, when I was about six or seven, they started being not very friendly to my parents. So as a result, my sister and I decided to get payback against them.

We always heard our parents talking about making their lawn greener than our neighbours too, so we decided to help them out as our first payback. So one day when our neighbours weren’t home, we took some of their bleach that they left outside and poured the entire bottle all over their front lawn. It was pretty genius of us too considering that those spots of their lawn were completely dead after some time. Then the same day, we also decided to clog their eaves, so we shoved every page from the newspaper into their eaves spout. I think we did that one because we sat there waiting about 2 minutes for their lawn to die, and when it didn’t die before our eyes, we wanted to make sure we made our point.

Over the months we tried to do more to get our revenge too.

During the fall time, they had these plants along the top of the fence, so we knocked every single of them down into their yard. During the winter we shovelled all of our snow from our back yard, into their driveway, and even made sure to get some doggy doo doo in with it too. Then in the spring, more specifically, at Easter, we got a bunch of gum from the Easter Bunny. So we chewed all of it, made a huge glob and wrapped it around the tree in their yard.

We were quite the deviants. I think those must have been the rebel days of our lives too. I kinda feel bad for our neighbours now, but I guess we could have done worse right? Besides, we were young and didn’t know any better from pouring bleach on the neighbours lawn.

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. ‘Which road do I take?’ she asked. ‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response. ‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered. ‘Then,’ said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.” – Alice In Wonderland

Tyson Trepidations.

A Sock Saved Is A Penny Earned

Generally I have never had a problem with saving money, I’m pretty well self-disciplined and don’t spend a lot of money on things I don’t need. I actually rarely ever buy myself something, most of the time my money is spent doing things instead.

Even that time as a kid when my sister and I saved up all kinds of change and money to get our hamster, we always kept it in an old coffee tin and never ever took anything out of it to spend or play with. More recently, just last summer my family set up a savings jar to be able to afford for all of us to go to the PNE at the end of summer. It only took us two months to get enough money to pay for a hotel for 4 plus entry and ride tickets at the PNE. Then just last night my sister and I started a new savings jar that we will add to all year long until next summer so we can do something crazy.

Just from last night and today, we already have $69.96 in the jar. But of course I don’t expect it to keep filling up that fast. The first $40 was a donation from our parents, I added the $10 bill I had in my wallet; then the rest is from change I found in my room, my sister found, wallet, under the seats of all the cars in the family, and from cans and bottles that we had around the house.

What really kicked off our saving though was taking the dog for a walk last night. We took him around to all the three schools in this town and decided we would pick up all the cans in the area while we were walking.

Somehow we got talking about doing a trip next summer, and I told her my plans to do some crazy stuff. The mix of picking up the bottles got us thinking that maybe we should start saving for a trip or an adventure next year. So we started and really got into it. Heck, we even looked inside the garbage cans all over the three schools, which actually gave us a pretty good amount of bottles. Following that, we decided we would take a nice drive up some of the dirt roads and pick up a few bottles along them as well. By the end of the night, we filled up a garbage bag 3/4 of way with bottles and cans, making it a pretty successful night of collection.

Today I cashed in all the non-alcoholic bottles and cans, getting us $8 to add to our jar, but I still have to bring in the alcoholic ones which will give us a lot more money. I couldn’t do that today though because the liquor stores aren’t accepting them until after the long weekend.

It’s kinda funny actually how when my sister and I make a goal or start planning something, we really get into it and make our best strives to succeed in our plans or ideas. I feel like we will be pretty successful in this endeavour. Plus! I’m going to start putting away a certain percentage of my pay cheques in the jar to help as well. It wont be much since I’m cutting my hours down to two or three days a week, but it’ll still help!

Nasty. Dirty Feet Bother Me...

Once we returned from our short bottle hunting excursion, I started to try and think of other ways that we can add to our travel money jar. I know once the winter comes, there are always a couple of older folks that pay me a few dollars to shovel their driveway during snowfalls, which I can always add to the jar. Plus, I’ll probably keep hunting everyone’s cars for loose change as well since they add up quite a bit. I mean in our travel jar right now, we already have almost $14 in loose change.

When I was talking to one of my friends about my plans with my sister, he told me to sell my used, old and dirty socks/shoes on eBay. I laughed fairly heartily too because I thought he was joking, but I kinda got intrigued when he told me that he wasn’t kidding. So I went on eBay and typed in the search bar, “Used Socks”. It’s actually quite amazing how many old and used socks are posted on there, and people are getting anywhere from $2 to $20 on one pair of their used socks.

At first I thought that maybe people were buying them for crafts or to build a tattered sock puppet or something, but after thinking a little, it didn’t make sense because you could just buy a bag of socks at Wal-Mart for cheaper than some of those single pairs of socks. After researching on the internet a little bit though, I found it was more for the people that have a foot fetish, for some reason they got off by buying other people’s old used socks. For fun I also looked up used shoes, and they were selling pretty good as well, somewhere around $30 give and take. I’m not sure if I’m up for selling my old socks and old shoes though. I don’t really care what people would do with them and it doesn’t bother me, once they are out of my possession it doesn’t matter to me anymore. It’s just the principal of it that bothers me. I’m sure I’ll manage to save enough in my other methods though so it shouldn’t be needed to do this. Although, it is very odd, quite unique and baffling that people actually make quite a fortune selling their old socks.

 

“Never put a sock in the toaster.” Eddie Izzard

 

Tyson Trepidations.

Summer 2011: A Review

Okay, so I know summer isn’t really over yet, technically. But to me, it seems like it is since I have no more plans or days off until school starts. Not to mention, its been getting cold at night, I even had to scrape the frost off my car’s window this morning on my way to work AND  Also, when I was driving home after work, I noticed that some of the trees have been

Autumn in British Columbia

starting to yellow/brown/redden already.

Don’t get me wrong neither, I like fall. It’s a pleasant season, not too hot or too cold and British Columbia is absolutely beautiful with it’s magnificent autumn colours.

J’aime le Canada! Vive le Canada!

Oh, and don’t forget! My birthday is in the fall too! October 25th! I actually know a lot of people with birthdays around then. Even just at work, there are two people born on October 26th, and another born on the 24th.

Anyways! Back to my summer review.

It wasn’t my most adventurous summer I’ve had, just one vacation that would probably be the highlight of the entire summer, even though it was just at the beginning. That would have been my two week roadtrip across my wonderful province and country with my Cali G.

Some other highlights would include yesterday with the whitewater rafting and jumping off that cliff; Going to Vancouver to visit with one of my best camp friends; Catching another amazing Bon Jovi concert; The purchase of VIP Ke$ha tickets feat. LMFAO; Camping out at my nieces 13th birthday party; Getting a nice raise at work; Hiking to Moul Falls and the Trophy Mountain Meadows at Wells Grey Park and; lots of awesome summer movies.

I’m sure I’m missing something in there too, that I’ll probably think of later and kick myself for not adding.

A Shot Of Me This Summer, I'm One Scary Dude!

In the whole though, it was pretty enjoyable of a summer, with lots of smiles and I got to make a tonne of other people smile as well. With that said, I am actually looking forward to starting classes on Wednesday, September 7th. I have some really interesting classes and it should be fun learning about the subjects.

As for next summer, I’m not sure what the plans are yet, but I started saving and preparing already. It’s going to be an amazing one and I’m going to make sure to have some very adventurous plans and see lots of new things. Today I even got out of the house with my sister and we went to all the schools around town with the dog collecting all the pop cans and beer bottles. Heck, we even got our inner bum on and looked in the garbage cans. Going to cash them in tomorrow!

“Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

Tyson Trepidations.

Like A Supernova, That Old Life Is Over

I already mentioned this, but I finished Carte Blanche a few days ago, and I thought it was actually pretty awesome. Surprisingly, I haven’t read any Jeffery Deaver novels before this one, and he’s a writer whom is regarded often as the best American thriller novelist of the modern age. I might have to read more from him now though. I enjoyed Carte Blanche quite a bit and it did perk my interests into Deaver’s writing. As far as this James Bond went, I was pretty impressed. It goes back to the original Ian Flemming’s 007, except a little updated to modern age (rather than from Flemming’s 50′s). So I recommend this read fully, even to the Flemming and Bond fanatic.

Now that that book is finished, I’ve moved on to starting Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. This is a classic written in the 60′s as a post war novel that stood the test of time. I’ve been pretty excited to read this one for a while and it seems quite awesome and humorous so far!

Since I’m on the writing/reading subject, I should say that I added another chapter to the book I’m working on and I’m really enjoying where it’s going. Although I am a little worried that it may take a bit of a back seat when school starts since I need to spend a lot more time on school and studying. But that’s alright anyways. It’ll give me more time to brainstorm since its not a short book by any means.

The school year is coming pretty fast too, starting in about two weeks now. Yesterday I did some school supply shopping though and got most of it taken care of with the essentials. I even got a really neat flash drive too! I think the only other thing I might want to add is a new bag. Mine is starting to look a little ratty, plus it bugs me the way that it rubs against my leg when I walk, I need a bit softer of a shoulder bag I think. I’m not too partial of the backpacks anymore since I got myself a “murse” a couple years ago, but I’m really picky with my bags usually. I hope my friends don’t mind the beard neither, it’s gotten a lot more thick lately and a bit more of a hassle to sculpt with my razor. But I am liking it quite a bit and I’ll have to post some pictures once my Ke$ha and LMFAO VIP package arrives.

Also! I got a gift certificate for whitewater rafting, so I’ll probably be doing that next week sometime. I’m very excited, its going to be quite the adventure and dangerous going down waterfalls and all kinds of rapids! So wicked awesome cool! AND it’s looking very hopeful that I may be getting a visit from my other Cali-family that isn’t actually related to me.

I’m not really sure what I was thinking, but at work today I was just singing some weird songs. My co workers couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth I think. Oh well though, I made a couple of them literally fall on the ground laughing, so that makes everything good. I love making people laugh! Maybe I should make a music video for Found a Penis or something, everyone at work seemed to like it. But do I really want to be known as the YouTube Penis Song Boy? Or Kid as Ophelia would call me?

For my American friends, visitors and subscribers that haven’t heard of the Canadian band Hedley, you gotta check them out! They have some really awesome music and just released their newest single yesterday (Well, I guess the day before now, since its after midnight. I always seem to make posts super late at night…). Their newest song is called Invincible and it’s lyrically very beautiful! Kinda like their song Perfect, except this one is a little more contemporary/mainstream. But still beautiful.

 

“Some days there wont be a song in your heart. Sing anyways” – Emory Austin

 

Tyson Trepidations.

 

Tonight, a Little Bit Of Everything.

I’ve been keeping myself quite busy for the last month of summer I have left, hence the slow posting so far in August. I do have some really exciting (at least to me) posts that I have planned though when I have more time!

What have I been busy with?!

Tonnes, just the other day I went into Kelowna with my best friend, basically just for a day trip. The night before though, I made sure to watch the weather network and see if I should bring my swimming shorts or not, and the weather man loser dude said it was supposed to rain! He couldn’t be more wrong, it was such a beautiful, sunny and hot day spent in my jeans and not in the lake! Oh well I guess, at least we got some amazing Vietnamese food AND I bought some really nice new tap shoes, they were over a hundred dollars, but the sound that comes off of them sound like a hundred dollar shoe! So needless to say, I was pretty happy.

I did make up for missing out on the lake though! Last night I spent the entire time at one of my favorite lakes. It was South Barriere Lake, so there was nobody else there and its such a beautiful one too since its all natural from being so far off the paved road and through some crazy nasty dirt road. But once you do arrive, the nasty drive is more than worth it. Plus, I got lots of marshmellows roasted and caught a couple fish, but decided to just release them. On the way home, that nasty road got the best of me and gave me a flat tire though… It would have been alright if I drove my own car, it only takes a couple minutes to change a tire on her. But last night, I traded my car for my dad’s since his handles the bumpy dirt roads better than mine does. Although when I got a flat in his car, and went to get the jack and spare tire, I found my dad’s 150 pound tool box sitting on top of the spare. Now I’m in pretty good shape and lift a lot of fairly hefty boxes at work, but I gotta admit, I struggled getting that tool box out of the trunk. When I finally got the jack and everything though, I found that all the nuts holding the tires were rusty, so rusty that I couldn’t even turn them when tugging the wrench with all my strength. The toolbox ended up coming in assistance though when I improvised a longer handle for the tire wrench and finally got the nuts to unscrew and get the tire changed.

Other than those two adventures, I’ve been just relaxing and doing some thinking. I came to the realization that I like dating a girl that’s younger than me by a few years rather than the same age or older. I’m not sure why, but just like the crazies, I seem to be naturally attracted to them. Also, I don’t really like a too voluptuous girl, again, I’m not sure why, it’s just not as attractive to me. Everyone says I have odd tastes though, not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Some more notes to mention are that I taught my nephew to burp (I’m sure my sister will get payback soon), and my beard is coming along really well too for the concert! Right now it’s more like a thick stubble, but anyhow, I’ve been taking extra care in grooming it and making it perfectly even so that it’s going to be wicked for the concert next month.

One last thing! Make sure to check out Ophelia’s blog, she’s a pretty cool cat with lots of wicked things to talk about! Plus she’s very honest, humble, cute and quite funny too! You can’t go wrong.

http://opheliadear.wordpress.com/

 

 

“You shoot me down, but I wont fall, I am Titanium” – Titanium by David Guetta ft. Sia

 

Tyson Trepidations.

There’s No Words To Describe A Smile

Today I was working a dayshift over at the restaurant, it wasn’t too bad of a day neither. But during the first shift change, when one of my co-workers came in, I noticed that she must have been crying a lot today. Her eyes were all red, had that bit of sparkle to them that said they were crying and plus her attitude hinted towards the fact as well. Being me of course, I felt a little bad and wanted to cheer her up a bit. I don’t know why, but when someone around me has been having a bad day or anything of the sort, I’m not really the type of person who will just brush it off and ignore it. Even if its somebody I don’t know. So I started to do what I do best.

Of course I gave her a hug first, I didn’t ask what was wrong or anything, I’m not going to prolong whatever it is that’s making her feel down. Plus, if she felt she needed to tell someone, she know’s I’m an excellent listener. I’m an even better hugger though, everyone at camp told me that I give the best bear hugs ever, so that actually makes me a bit proud of the skill. Plus, I love hugs! I think they are the best when you or someone else is feeling a little less than normal, they are always the perfect pick uppers. When I hugged her though, I could tell that she appreciated it and that’s the feeling that makes me know today was a good day because I could help make somebody elses a little better. It’s who I am.

Of course though, for anyone that knows me, they know I wont stop until I accomplish getting a smile. So my mission wasn’t over yet in trying to pick up one of my workmates day.

After working with her a few times, I know what she appreciates, and that is someone who’s sincere and has that kind of humour as well. So I started to tell her a story about when I was eleven. It was about this one time (when I was eleven obviously), I really wanted to see that movie Jaws. I thought it looked really awesome but my parents didn’t want me watching it, so I never was allowed. But one night, it was on TV at 2 AM, so I snuck out of bed and into the living room just to watch Jaws. Probably not the best of my ideas neither, considering the entire time I was watching it, I didn’t move a muscle because I was so creeped out from the movie and too scared to even twitch. Even when the movie ended, I didn’t get up from the couch because I was too afraid to make it all the way to my room. So needless to say, I ended up spending the night on the couch, without even a wink of sleep. I never did tell my parents about that neither, I just pretended I was up before them the next morning to get ready for school. The worst part though, was the constant nightmares for almost a week because of that movie! I don’t remember what they were about, I just remember they caused some pretty rough nights.

Of course I threw some jokes in there though when I told my co-worker, and she seemed to appreciate it all, I think I even saw a bit of a curl of a smile in the corner of her lips. But unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention enough to read into that microexpression.

After I caught that hint of a bit of a smile though, I knew the one thing that would seal the deal, it always worked and never failed. It’s something that I learned from one of the safety officers we had when I went on a trip to Calgary as a non-commissioned officer in Cadets. Her name was Captain Anderson, and everytime we were unloading the bus, she felt the need to get a smile out of everyone before they climbed off at the destination. So while you approached her, she would say really loudly “SSSSMMMIIIIILLLLLEEE!” and really annoyingly I might add as well. She always did it in quite a high pitched voice and dragged the ‘I’ sound quite a lot as well. Sadly for her, it didn’t work as well as she anticipated. Although, to me, I knew it was all about the execution to get it to work and I perfected what she wasn’t able to do.

So if we rewind a bit…

Ljankdjf ajkdfnkadjkfa danjf bmadjkfnajds fahjdnfna *Moves really fast backwards* kaskdj adfn adnfjsd fakndfn ajd naf

As soon as I saw what I thought was a crack of a smile I looked my fellow worker in the eye, gave her a crooked smile of my own and said excruciatingly loudly, high pitched and with that emphasis on the ‘I’, “SMIIIIIILLEEE!” and just for a good measure, I added a really quick but sharp “SMILE!” afterwards. It worked just how it was supposed to and I knew I successfully completed my mission when I saw that huge grin spread across her face.

So there’s a bit of a glimpse in what I try to accomplish everyday when I can. I love making people smile and when I do, I know that day wasn’t a waste at all because I could do so. In a way, its what I live for and I think I do a pretty good job too if I don’t say so myself.

Where people may propose that a picture can say a thousand words, I propose that a smile can make a thousand words seem like nothing, just the feeling of getting one smile out of somebody who needs it is beyond any of the best words to describe it. So keep that in mind next time you see someone who’s having a bad day, even if you don’t know them.

 

“Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love” – Mother Teresa

 

Tyson Trepidations.

Dick Van Dyke: Decades of Entertainment

A few years ago, I told Esquire magazine that the Buddhists boiled it down to the essentials. They said you need three things in life: Something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. The message does not get any clearer.  - Dick Van Dyke: My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business (a memoir)

 

Friday night, just before seeing the final Harry Potter, I bought myself a hardcover copy of Dick Van Dyke’s memoir called, “My Lucky Life In and Out of Show Business”. I first noticed his memoir when I was on my roadtrip in May, but I thought I better not buy it since mostly everything was being put on my credit card already. So I waited until I knew I could afford such things. I didn’t get to start the book on that Friday though, I got home somewhere after one in the morning, therefore needed to get some shut eye. But after reading a bit each night, I just finished it no more than fifteen minutes ago.

Before I start talking about what I thought of Dick’s memoir, I thought I should mention the reason I wanted to buy it in the first place. Basically I know Dick Van Dyke has been an inspiration to a lot of people over the many decades he has spent entertaining. He influenced my parents and grandparents with his classic shows and movies, as well as myself being yet another generation ahead. But with that said, there are still a few other celebrities that withstand the test of time. What really draws me to Dick Van Dyke though is his honesty, humbleness and the values he has always portrayed in his life, as well as his films and shows. Not only that, but he has the best type of comedy in my opinion. The clean, true, beautiful kind that gets a real laugh and creates memories that burn into your life forever.

His memoir is basically what you expect though. You learn about his early life, childhood, teen years, young adulthood and his climb into the show business. He talks about all the shows, movies and mentions a number of the specials he’s appeared in throughout the years, putting an emphasis on those which were most important to him and his career. It also shows that for a man in his mid-eighties, he’s still got it in him, and he’s still a kid at heart and in his soul.

Ultimately from about his life, views and thoughts, it instilled my fondness and respect for him even more. I know that when I have children, I want to share his work with them as well, and let them learn from him as many generations already have.

For anyone who know’s of Dick Van Dyke, I would most definitely suggest reading the book. You really hear a lot of great stories from his life and of the interactions he has had with family, personal problems, other celebrated figures and life in general. But there is a lot of reference to a lot of his work, so if your not familiar with it you may need to brush up a little bit first.

Happy reading to anyone that decides to read it. But for me, its time to start 007: Carte Blanche that I just got tonight.

 

“Hope is life’s essential nutrient, and love is what gives life meaning” – Dick Van Dyke

 

Tyson Trepidations.

The Kids and The Crazies

I’ve been single since last summer, which has been fine with me since I’ve been pretty busy with school, living out of town, plus everything happening at home. Although since then, I have managed to squeeze in a couple dates here a and there as well. I will admit though, this summer I wish I lived somewhere with a bit more population, especially around my age, it would make my summer slightly more enjoyable and actually give me people to hang out with. But that’s not really what this post is about. Its about the type of girls I seem to attract and the ones that ask me out.

The title really says it all, most of the girls that get huge crushes or ask me out are the kids or the crazies! I don’t understand it, but that’s what it seems like for me. Maybe I have some sort of built in maniac magnet? Whatever it might be though, always makes for an awkward or interesting situation.

I figure that the best way to demonstrate this, would be to give a couple examples of the girls that have taken an interest in me. So here they are, in all their glory.

 

Marlene:

Marlene is a young lady that was friends with another girl that I hung out with from time to time. So needless to say, I saw her on a semi-often basis. I didn’t mind if she was around though because she was fairly quiet and didn’t bother us too much, but did give her two cents every once in a while.

A while ago though, my town had a community clean up event going, called the “Trash Bash”, where volunteers go around town and pick up any garbage that they find. Of course being such a small town, Marlene was there as well, and of course with my luck, the event organizer partnered her with me. But that was alright at the time, I didn’t really want to be with one of the old people that would go really slow. Plus I already knew Marlene so it limited the “getting to know small talk” that I hate so much.

During the Trash Bash, I was just being my silly self and of course cracked a lot of jokes and made Marlene laugh lots. So yes, I probably did have it coming, but who knew a girl almost half my age would be compelled to express that she liked me?

Yes, at the time I was 21 and she was 13. “Almost 14″, as she would say.

But at the end of the Trash Bash we packed everything up and returned our garbage sticks to the organizers. Then before I jumped in my car to leave, Marlene ran up to me… I figured she was going to ask for a ride or something, but boy, did she ever catch me off guard! I gotta give her an A for effort though and it was rather cute too.

She said, “I know your a bit older than me and going to college and everything”. Where I nodded and agreed, except its more like a LOT older than you and going to university… She continued saying, “but I really like you and was hoping that you would be my boyfriend?”. That’s where she really caught me off guard. I had no idea what to tell her and stumbled around a few opening words while hurrying to try and find something to say to let her down nicely. So I finally managed to get out something along the lines that she was right, she’s a lot younger than me and I’m too busy to have girlfriend so I didn’t think it was good idea.

The whole thing felt so awkward though and I felt like stabbing my eyeballs out the whole time.

Luckily she got the message, but once she turned 14, she decided to get a job where I work. So I guess she’s one of those people that you just can’t escape in a small town! So it feels a little awkward sometimes at work, even though she hasn’t bothered me anymore.

 

Natalie:

Natalie is an interesting one to say the least. I didn’t really have a choice of meeting her neither because at the start of the winter semester she was in my Chemistry class and sat beside me saying, “I will now be your friend and you will eventually come to terms with that”. So I guess we are friends, she’s very entertaining so I’m alright with that, in moderation though. But it gets better, later in the day I ended up having my Cell Biology class with her as well. So there was no escaping, she sat beside me there too, forcing our friendship the entire time.

After a while though, I found out why she was so weird. In one of our seminars for Cell Biology I was eating a puff wheat square for lunch, so Natalie decided to tell me all about how she tried to make them once when she was staying at a halfway house for the mentally insane.

For those that don’t know, a halfway house for the mentally insane is basically where crazy people go before getting integrated back into society.

Natalie is kinda creepy though, she always seems to know things that occur in my life before I even tell her. I do have her on Facebook, so that would explain it, except that I have her on a limited profile where she can’t see all that much… Also there’s this other Natalie in our class, so she makes a habit of stalking her and getting to know her without actually talking to her.

I have managed to escape getting asked out from Natalie, except she’s hinted quite a lot and is always touching my arms and trying to give me hugs. Usually I’m ok with that, I’m a very touchy person, but the way she does it makes it feel so weird and wrong. I’m not sure if its her cold and clammy hands or how she does it, but it gives me the chills.

I have managed to escape her some during the summer, but she warned me on Facebook last week that she’s super clingy and I should expect a huge tackle hug from her on the first day back.

 

So that’s only two examples, but there are more believe it or not. There’s Shelby from Physics, who likes to scratch her elbow and cackle at herself because of it. There’s also Darby, who’s incredibly young yet always hits on me in the weirdest ways. Hopefully I’ll start getting a little better luck with the type of girls that like me soon.

 

“Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit they are crazy” – Nora Ephron

 

Tyson Trepidations.

My Gay Best Friend

Throughout my childhood and going through the various stages of adolescent schooling, I really only had one best friend.

His name is Steve.

Best Friends

We met a couple weeks after kindergarten had started and our friendship took off from there, leaving us as best friends still to this day (something like 16 years later). Growing up I never really knew Steve was gay, he was always a little different and sometimes I did suspect it, but that didn’t really matter neither; I just kinda brushed it off and didn’t put too much thought into it.

Even though we were best friends and could talk about literally anything, the one thing that we never really talked about was girls. I’m not exactly sure why… I mean of course Steve wasn’t attracted to them, so I guess he never got that urge to talk about them with me. I didn’t mind and didn’t really care neither, I come from a tiny town with only farm girls basically. So with that said, I didn’t develop very many crushes in my adolescent years, since I never had an attraction to the farmgirl type. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining at all, in fact, I actually think all that was a good thing in developing who I am as an individual. I think having Steve as my best friend and hanging out with him everyday since kindergarten gave me the respect that I have always had for girls and made me a more understanding and sensitive guy.

Once we hit grade 12, I began to question his sexuality a little more than usual. There’s actually a day that I’ll aways remember, mostly because Steve infused it into my memory: April 6th, 2008. On that day and for no real reason, we were talking about that hit movie called High School Musical. We had never seen it, but didn’t really understand what all the commotion was about with it. So while we were on the phone we did a quick research on what it was, who played in it, etc. We soon discovered that the teen heart-throb Zac Efron was the star of the High School Musical movies.

I know it probably sounds a little odd I’m talking about High School Musical now, but what I foolishly did next is the reason why.

After finding out that this Zac Efron guy was the star of the movies, I sent Steve an email entitled “Pooooo” featuring a photo of Zac Efron in a white muscle shirt (The same photo that’s beside this paragraph). This set off a frenzy and Steve officially had his first boy crush from that day forward.

Everyday he would literally spend on the internet researching Zac Efron, looking up videos of Zac Efron on YouTube, photos all over the web and all the movies he appeared in. He was obsessed.

A couple weeks later, on the first day of spring break, Steve was set to travel to Ottawa ON, and I was set to head out to Victoria BC. But the day before, Steve managed to borrow the first and second High School Musical from some girl a few grades below us. Then that night, he brought them to my house and we watched both of them back to back. I have to admit, I didn’t think they were all too bad, besides the cheesy acting and dumbwit teenage drama.

Sadly the movies had some catchy tunes, which from that day forward would constantly get stuck in my head. Steve didn’t help neither by singing all the songs during class, lunch break and anytime he could. He listened to the soundtracks back to back to back for weeks. It was really quite an insane end to our grade twelve year. All thanks to me and my “Pooooo” email from months earlier.

After a full summer spent at a summer camp together, we were headed right into first year university. Not too much had changed though, Steve still obsessed over Zac Efron and continued to sing along with the High School Musical songs on a daily basis.

On the eve of my 19th birthday though, we decided that we would go to the theaters and catch High School Musical 3: Senior Year, on October 24th, 2008. We made sure to catch the late, 10 PM showing as well, to make sure there wouldn’t be too many little kids around. But that didn’t really work. The theater was packed full of children still that late in the night.

The movie was overall pretty good, much better quality and build than the first two, along with way better acting, music and dilemmas. Although what I remember most is how Steve squeeled when Zac Efron first showed up on the big screen. He was playing basketball, singing, all sweaty and once again, in a muscle shirt as his jersey. I actually think Steve may have out-squeeled most of the little girls. That’s quite impressive.

After the movies, we went back to my dorm room as Steve decided to stay the night on my floor. I know that seeing High School Musical 3 that night was bad enough, but Steve really wanted to watch the Hannah Montana – Miley Cyrus 3D Concert (featuring the Jonas Brothers). I felt nice, so I put it in and we started watching.

Now, after seeing High School Musical 3 and hearing Steve squeel over Zac Efron, it did get me a little suspicious about his sexuality. But once the Jonas Brothers came on stage, that really planted the idea into my head. Especially considering the way he shouted “Joe! Jonas!” when they came on stage.

It was in that moment that I asked him, “Steve, are you gay?”.

My Best Friend Steve

He didn’t really have to answer me though, from his actions I probably could have guessed the answer. After being best friends for so long, you kinda get to know each others body language and be able to read things off of each others faces. But I gotta say, the face he made at that moment was like none I had ever seen him make before, it was new. He just got up and walked over to the sink in my kitchenette and kinda just stood there for a moment, staring into open space.

Eventually, as Miley Cyrus was entering back on stage with her song “Start All Over”, Steve quietly answered almost in a daze with a “yessss-s-s”. After answering, it was almost he snapped back into real life and realized what he had done. He had finally admitted to someone his biggest secret that he has probably ever kept.

With that, he gracefully said, “I feel like I’m going to throw up!”.

For the rest of the evening, we just went for a walk across the quiet city, to kinda just cool down and make Steve’s head stop rushing. During that night, Steve told me everything he was hiding inside that was never released to anyone else besides his own conscience.

That night really showed me what being a best friend was all about and gave it a lot deeper of a meaning. It also helped me really understand that a homosexual individual isn’t all that much different from myself, they are just a normal person getting through life and hoping to fall in love, just this time with another man, instead of a woman.

“Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart” – Eleanor Roosevelt

Tyson Trepidations.