Monthly Archives: January 2011

January 17, 2011

A Great Day

By Canadian Bald Guy

With mom in the hospital, there wasn’t a lot of things on the agenda for Ankle Biter and I this past weekend. We did some running around on Saturday…shopping, laundry, mail, etc…but while we hung out together, we didn’t really do much with substance.

Sunday was the day.

Before the NFL playoff games started (I’ve got priorities, after all…lol), Ankle Biter and I went outside to play in the snow.  This is something we never really did at my old house because I didn’t really care for the layout very much.  I love my new back yard and we ended up having a blast.

Ankle Biter gave a thumbs up to the idea of going outside.

Honestly officer...I really don't know how my son got thrown into that snowbank.

I dug a trench, of sorts, leading from my back deck up the backyard to the fence through the snow (at the request of Ankle Biter, of course). He eventually had fun running down and knocking his father into the snow.

Well...here's the trench. I tried to get Ankle Biter to do a Rocky pose, of sorts. I had 'Eye of the tiger' playing in my head when I took this picture.

Y'know...I figured that I eventually want to not do ANY work around the house whenever my son comes to visit, so I might as well start him out now on the manual labor. He's gotta learn, right?

It had been a pretty cloudy day, but I just couldn't help but take a picture when the sun came out. For whatever reason, I love taking photos of the sun. Eventually I'll take one that's really awesome.

I really think this is one of the best pictures I've ever taken of Ankle Biter. This, my friends, is the look of pure joy.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in parenting, relationships

January 14, 2011

The Sound of Silence

By Canadian Bald Guy

I got to talk with a couple of my favorite ladies last night: my mom and my daughter.

I love you mom. We'll get through this.

Mom’s doing okay while in the hospital in Halifax, NS. She’s been able to walk from the bed to the bathroom and from the bed to the doorway without the leg giving out on her, so that’s a very encouraging sign.

She’s sad, though, because none of her friends or family lives in Halifax (other than Sunshine, of course).  So she’s lonely.  VERY lonely.  My dad has been driving up almost every single day since she was hospitalized with the exception of the last two days because of the winter storm…but she feels like she’s missing out on so many things and she just wants to be able to go home.

The problem is that when her leg is healthy enough, the doctors will want to operate on her back.  She has a ruptured disc that needs repairing and it’ll be a sensitive operation because the disc was injured due to the tumors in her back.  So there is a possibility of paralysis if the cancer attacks her spinal cord.  And where the doctors almost lost mom twice on the operating table when her leg was operated on last week, they want to make sure her body can handle another operation.

Rugrat: 08-13-10

I explained that when I talked to Rugrat last night and I think she understood.  She simply said that she hoped that “nany was  feeling better”.  It was yet another awkward phone call where she was happy to talk to me and liked talking about herself, but was playing with her PSP and really wanted to get back to it.

I know I shouldn’t take that personally.  I have this fantasy that she can’t wait to talk to me on the phone, but I guess at 12 years old and a plane ride away that’s just not a realistic fantasy.  Her birthday is next weekend, actually.  It’s hard to believe that my little girl is turning 12.  Wow.

She said that she wanted to come visit and wanted to know when I could fly her in.  I told her that Sunshine and I had tossed around the idea of maybe visiting her in Toronto instead.  She immediately shot that down and said that she’d rather come here.  I laughed and asked why because she usually gets bored at my house after five minutes.  She just laughed and said if I came up there that she’d want to hang out the entire time…so I guess that was a good thing.

Sunshine: 01-08-11

This brings me to Sunshine.  Sunshine’s been having a pretty tough week. Because of this tough week, we haven’t talked on the phone in a few days.  And with both of us having the kids this weekend, we may not get around to talking until Sunday.

When she’s hurting or having a difficult time, Sunshine withdraws from me.  I guess I’m the same way so it’s not like I fault her for it or anything, but I just wish I could help her.  The thing is that we’re both alike in a number of ways, and dealing with difficulties on our own is how we’ve always done things.  It’s probably not the healthiest way to work through issues, but it’s just how we process and move forward.

The sound of silence…sometimes it’s golden, sometimes it’s lonely.  I’m hoping that silence is broken sooner rather than later because I simply want to be there for her the way that she’s there for me.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in cancer, dating, parenting, relationships

January 13, 2011

Snow Job ’11

By Canadian Bald Guy

I’m taking a break from the self-analysis that I’ve been doing over the past few days.  It’s been very beneficial to help identify and attempt to sort out these feelings from the past, but it’s also been emotionally draining.  So today I didn’t really feel like having another brain dump.

I woke up this morning to the first official “real” snowstorm of 2011 for my area.  And of course, I figured I could take some pictures and call that a post for today.  I mean…I was outside blowing snow and shoveling for over 90 minutes.  That’s enough work for the post, doncha think??

Hey…you get what you pay for, right?

I got outside around 7:00am to find THIS on my back deck. Yeesh.

This is my car. Seriously...this is my car at 7:00am. Ummm yeah...we had a bit of snow fall overnight.

I had to shovel a tunnel just to get from my back door to the shed so I could get out my snow blower.

Well...my morning got a whole lot harder (#thatswhatshesaid) because my shovel broke on me. Heavy snow is not fun. Trying to shovel heavy snow with a broken shovel is REALLY not fun.

Where's my car? Oh...there it is. Slightly buried under just a dash of snow. Eeesh.

The driveway wasn't as bad as it could have been, but the drift that the snowplow had provided at the end of the driveway was probably about 3 feet tall and 3 feet deep. My poor snow blower got quite the workout this morning.

This is my driveway after about two hours of snow blowing and shoveling. Gotta love the winter.

This is my attempt to get at least ONE artistic photo in all of this mess.

All in all, they said 31cm (just over 12 inches) of snow fell overnight.  Not the worst storm in history, but certainly enough to keep me busy and to shut down the city.

Gotta love the winter!!

8 comments   |  tags: , , , | posted in photography

January 12, 2011

I Was Bullied

By Canadian Bald Guy

With all of the attention being placed on anti-bullying campaigns lately, I thought I’d share some of my own thoughts on being bullied as a kid and whether or not they might be part of the background to my current self-loathing issues.

Young CBG - late 70s

I was always a nerdy, dorky kid.  I also moved around a lot before entering high school because my dad worked in a bank and was promoted to larger and larger branches every few years.  It’s similar to my current job, actually…if you’re good and are willing to travel, then there are a lot of possibilities out there for you.

Anyway…

8th grade CBG

Once the family finally settled in at what would eventually be called my hometown, I was just entering seventh grade and the all-too-awkward teen phase.  It wasn’t a pretty sight.

My bullying was never in the form of physical violence, but rather emotional abuse.  I was always picked on by a number of different people, but one in particular at one point drove me to the point where I considered killing him.

Seriously.

It’s extremely scary to look back and see how scared and angry I was…feeling helpless to do anything to change my situation.  Every day I’d see this punk…good looking, cocky, getting all the girls…and every day he’d make fun of me in front of my peers…people who were my friends and people who I wanted to be friends with.  He’d verbally abuse me in front of the other kids and laugh about it…not realizing the pain he was truly causing.

It really did get to the point where I found a knife and an empty cardboard box, at which point I took out my anger and frustration and violent thoughts out on it.

Thinking about that time now, I can see how it only added to the issues that seem to be plaguing me as an adult. How can I even think about having positive self-esteem when this period in my life haunts me.  I’m simply not the man that I always wanted to be and I think being bullied at school led into accepting my dad’s form of bullying (whether intentional or not) and, eventually, it led into being bullied by my ex-wife.

DJ-era CBG (late 90's)

So whatever happened to my bully?  Did I ever confront him?  The answers are “I don’t know” and “no”.  We actually ended up working in the same bar back in the early 90′s where I was his back-up DJ (my first gig) before eventually being promoted because he wasn’t good enough.  You’d think that would have helped my self-esteem out a bit, wouldn’t you.

We never became friends, but we became friendly after we left high school and worked together.  I don’t know if I can ever forgive him for the emotional scars he left, but I don’t think I hold any resentment or anger towards him.

I’m sure he’s a different person now anyway…probably has a loving wife and kids and a good job. I’m sure he’s got no idea just what he did to me and would probably be very apologetic for how he treated me.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  I have to in order to not hold any anger inside.

One simply has to let go.  Obviously, it’s easier said than done.

http://www.bullying.org/

http://www.antibullying.net/

http://www.bullyingcanada.ca/

7 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in CBG Memories

January 11, 2011

Impossible Expectations

By Canadian Bald Guy

One of the issues that Sunshine has helped bring to the surface over the past couple of weekends was concerning how I sometimes set expectations up for myself that are unrealistic…especially when it comes to my own dad.  See…my dad has never told me that he was proud of me so I’ve spent my entire life trying to gain his favor.

I should correct myself…he told me that he was proud of me one time: on the day I got married.  And…well…y’know…that didn’t end up the way we thought it would.

So in my mind, I not only am unable to make my dad proud…not only do I feel like I’ve been a constant disappointment to him…but I ended up failing at the one thing that he WAS proud of me for.

I know my dad loves me…I’ve never questioned that.  So why does it matter that he’s never said that he was proud of me?  Because he has told me numerous times just how disappointed has was in me in different situations.  Guess what rang through my mind as I grew up?

So here I am…a 38-year-old man with unresolved daddy issues.  And the thing is that they’re not on him, either.  These issues deal with my own lack of self-esteem and how I have always felt that if I made my dad  proud of me then maybe I wouldn’t feel like such a failure all of the time.

At this stage in my life, should it even matter?  Probably not…but it still eats away at me.  I feel like all I’ve ever done is let him down time after time.  He has gone out of his way on more than one occasion to stick his neck out and help me…and I know he wishes that I’d just be able to do well enough on my own without him having to help me out of the occasional jam.

And I guess at the end of the day, I want those same things, too…and that just compounds to the feelings I have of wanting to beat myself up for failing in my own life.

Right or wrong, those are my feelings. I feel like a failure in life because my dad has never told me that he was proud of me. I realize that sounds silly…almost absurd to even quantify my life into a simple sentence like that, but at the heart of things that’s what is going on inside of me.

My job, then, becomes finding a way to work through these self-loathing issues.  My job, now that I have recognized the issues, is to find a way to enter my 40′s and not feel as if I had made mistake after mistake my entire life.  My job is to not only say that I like myself and that I’m a good person, but to actually BELIEVE it.

That’s going to be more difficult than it should be.

9 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in relationships

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