aMMusing

It’s truly amazing the difference a year can make.

The headspace I was in a year or even two years ago is a distant memory. That’s not to say I’ve totally forgotten it, as that might imply that I haven’t learned anything from it. However, at the same time, I can recognize what I haven’t achieved without beating myself up over it.

For one thing, my attempt to quit smoking has failed …again. That bothers me, both physically and emotially, but rather than feeling bad about it, I’m more into thinking about how to give it another try. If someone were to ask me if the Stop Centre therapy is a hoax, I’m likely to say no: it might work for some, and it did work for me for a little while, although I think it’s more than a placibo than anything else. However, I don’t regret the considerable amount of cash I forked out on it. If I hadn’t tried it, I never would have known if it works or not. I think that’s just one indication of how I no longer beat myself up over failure, be it great or small.

An unfortunate effect of my attempt to quit smoking is that I gained even more weight this winter. I’m back to that familiar feeling from eight years ago when I would avoid looking at myself naked in the mirror or even as I dress or undress. However, recently as I recall how I managed to shed 30 pounds back then as I became disgusted with myself, I’ve been telling myself that I can do it again. So, finally, I got serious about it two weeks from Sunday and, in 10 days, already lost 3 pounds. That’s not enough to be visible and I still have a lot of clothes in my closet that I can’t get into, but I’m starting to feel the difference inside. By that I mean that I’m recalling what it’s like to crave carb-laden junk while in fact not being hungry. So, it’s just a bit of mind over matter as I say to myself, “But Maurice, you’re feeling full and you’re not really hungry, so don’t even think about those chips at the corner store.”

While I know there’s vanity involved, I have trouble with my body image these days, to the point that it’s one of the reasons I’ve been avoiding going out much since last fall. Cognitively I know it’s silly, but it’s very difficult to fight such emotions. So, doing something about it is empowering.

In fact, it’s just as empowering as when I remembered last October that last period in my life when I felt that the world was my oyster. Granted, that sense of confidence led me to making a big mistake, but when I thought about what inspired that confidence in the weeks or months before I started making that mistake, I remembered that it was in large part due to having gained control over my financial situation for the first time in my adult life. So, I worked long and hard on that crazy budget worksheet that allowed me, despite unexpected setbacks, to reduce my debt load by $6,500 in only six months, with a worse-case projection of being debt-free in 18 months from now. While it’s true that we learn from our mistakes, I’ve chosen to learn from my successes, which I think is a far healthier approach.

For many years I’ve been reading/lurking this blog. Its New York-based author has always been frank about how he’s been seeing a therapist for years. Recently, he fired his therapist of many years and got a new one, and even more recently he took issue with a psychotherapist named Jonathan Alpert who wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times entitled, “In Therapy Forever? Enough Already.” For me, it wasn’t Tin Man’s disagreement that got me thinking; rather, it was my own recent (and only) experience with therapy and the fact that many of my friends as well as my supervisor at work were astonished at how little time I spent in therapy yet emerged from it a considerably changed person. I don’t think of myself as better or stronger than Tin Man or anybody else who’ve stuck to therapy far longer than I did, nor, at the same time, do I assume that my “problems” are/were lesser than theirs. I believe that, fundamentally, I’m at peace with who I am and the fact I’m not a “spectacular” and well-known individual as dear Raymond was…

I think that’s because, in much smaller circles — among my friends and at work — I feel appreciated and trusted. Just this week, for instance, I got showered with praise by some clients and co-workers whom I never met just for the way I do what I do. In a way, it’s funny for an introvert, which I essentially am, to be called “patient with people,” a “team player,” and a “good teacher.” However, without wanting to blow my own horn, those are things I’ve been told well before I started working at the bank. Again, it’s more a case of building on the positive.

There’s that, and there’s choosing not to own what doesn’t belong to me. To my chagrin, I’ve learned that I have a few co-workers whom I consider(ed) friends that I mustn’t trust. However, now that I see that the problem is theirs and they’re only trying to make their problem mine, I can take a deep breath, tell myself, “It’s just a job,” and forget about it for the most part after I sign off work. If I’m comfortable with knowing that what I do for a living won’t change the world, which I am, then I’m equally comfortable accepting that their problem is pretty damn petty and not worth losing sleep over.

In fact, since therapy, I’ve become pretty darn good at not losing sleep over what I can’t control. For instance, when I took time off work last September, I finally began divorce proceedings some two years later than I should have. After each meeting, my lawyer would give me a deadline for the next step; between such a meeting and the stated deadline, I wouldn’t even think about “what if…” (as in, “what if we encounter this or that snag he mentioned”). Even when my mom would timidly ask how things we’re going on that front, I’d simply tell her we’re not at that stage yet and the only thing that matters is what really happens next, not what could happen. Two weeks ago, my lawyer and I hit a snag stemming from bureaucratic incompetence; at first I was annoyed, but then I thought to myself, “The fact we’ve hit that snag probably means it’s on the verge of being over.”

The only thing that mildly bugs me is that NowEx probably occupies more space in my mind than I do in his. I suspect he’s moved on long ago and that any thought of me, if any at all, probably inspires only bitterness or complete lack of interest. I doubt he’s learned much of this experience, sticking to his narrow view that he’s always right and everybody’s else view is wrong or not as right as his. The reason I think that is that he has, in this situation over the last (nearly) three years, repeated the same pattern as he has done all his life, namely completely cutting himself off from whomever he has fallen out with. He’s done it with friends and even his mother at one point, so he’s being consistent — that much I’ll give him. However, for me, the situation along with a few others converged and brought me to shut down for a little while before I decided that I needed to make a long-overdue and profound change in my life. Now I own what I own, but not what I don’t.

Some of what I own isn’t pretty, but better understanding what led me to owning it turns it into a simple statement of fact. For instance, as I marched towards marrying NowEx, I dismissed some uneasiness as “nerves” on my part. Now I own that I shut my eyes to something for which I didn’t have a name at the time. Now as I look back, I don’t feel proud nor ashamed; I don’t feel wounded; I just own it — my decision to overlook that oddity I couldn’t identify, that is. But instead of beating myself up for having overlooked it, I’m choosing to trust my instinct more.

Here’s another example that led me to this conclusion: When I started my downward slide two years ago, my gut told me that something was wrong at work and it wasn’t only that my personality didn’t mesh with my then-new supervisor. A year after she was no longer my supervisor, I learned from others exactly what she thought and said about me, which solidified her standing in my eyes as a Class “A” Bitch (and Moron). I should have trusted my instinct and done something about her; instead, I doubted myself. Today I don’t own what she did to me but what she inadvertently taught me, so if there’s anything good to be said about her, it’s that she was placed in my life’s path at the precise moment I needed to learn that lesson.

So here I am now, four years into living in Montreal (which I much prefer over Halifax), starting my 7th year at my job, and a bunch of self-improvement plans completed or underway. I’m still more anti-social than I probably should, but body image issues will do that to a guy and I’m working on that one. For the next little while, I can only imagine myself as The (Literally) Gay Divorcé. I should spend less time alone, start going out more, and try harder to make a few friends in this wonderful city, but …one thing at a time.

Let’s just say I’ve been busy lately and let’s leave it at that for now.

I simply haven’t been able to get Raymond out of my mind since Tuesday.

So many layers of disconnected thoughts and images keep flashing before my mind’s eye as I continue to live my day-to-day life, as one does. I have probably read every news story, comment, editorial or whatnot I could find online since last Tuesday’s horrific news. However, the extent to which I am grieving Raymond surprises me.

I do — or should I say did — count Raymond among my friends, but I would be greatly overstating things if I claimed that he was one of my best friends. I would also be lying if I said that he was on my “must call” list for my next trip to Halifax this coming August. At best, I may have had this vague notion in my mind that I might bump into him while there, for he was such an ubiquitous figure about town and, as the outpouring of tributes attests, everyone’s friend.

It’s also too easy, given the circumstances of Raymond’s death, to elevate him to a status of quasi-sainthood. Now don’t get me wrong: of all the people I’ve known, Raymond stands out as one of the most sincere, genuine, honest, dedicated, fun, selfless, and loving person I have ever had the chance to meet. In fact, I don’t think I ever met someone so devoid of malice, and even if he found himself on the receiving end of malice, he was likely to step back from it calmly and simply broker a truce, even if that truce was to agree to disagree. But it’s because of all his laudable qualities — and his playful naughtiness I myself witnessed — that he would have been the last one to aspire to the status of sainthood.

Some of the gruesome details of his fatal beating have been downplayed or redacted from the first accounts that hit the news, but they have been haunting me every night as I’ve gone to bed since Tuesday. Having lived in Halifax 22 years, I know the exact location of the crime scene very well. And the initial footage on TV showed that it was a foggy night — pea-soup foggy as I remember so well nights can be in that town he adopted and quite literally embraced. As I try to fall asleep, I keep seeing the assailant bashing Raymond’s head into the sidewalk; it’s a series of images in which I can see Raymond’s face so clearly and that keeps playing in an infinite loop until I literally shake my head to try to focus on other thoughts. I then say to myself — as if some comfort can be found in thinking this — that it probably all happened so fast that he didn’t have time to realize what was happening before the trauma caused his body to shut down. And, in that brief instant, Ray’s ray of life simply slipped away.

Thankfully, when I finally start thinking of “Ray of Life,” I see his tall, lean figure on the dance floor, dressed very much like in the photo above, and his playfully mischievous grin. “Goofy” is an attribute that is anything but pejorative when applied to Raymond.

My biggest struggle — and perhaps that of many others — is not to feel anger — some rational, most not. Why the heck were you out again so late on a Monday night, Raymond? Why didn’t your primal instinct not kick in to assess that you, all of 150 pounds when wet, couldn’t possibly overtake a 260-pound man? Why, in that moment, did you have to be so you? Who in their right mind — pardon the pun — would consider it safe to let the man who turned out to be your undoing out on an unsupervised leave from that mental health facility?

As cliché as it is, though, the reason why I — we — must not be angry is because you wouldn’t have wanted us to be angry. Ironically, Raymond, you would have been the first one to argue in favour of rehabilitation of mental health patients. You were profoundly human/humane that way. You wouldn’t have seen this matter in monochromatic black and white.

In fact, when I think about those who are calling for your murder to be considered a hate crime because your assailant supposedly called you “faggot,” I suspect you would reflect long and hard before getting on that bandwagon, if at all. It pains me to think that “faggot” may have been the last word you heard when you slipped away from this world, especially you who have fought so hard against homophobia. But while I still can’t bring myself to forgive your assailant — not to mention those who let him out — I have a feeling in my gut that the storm in his head brought him to hate anything and everything, indiscriminately. By that definition, your death was unequivocally a crime, but one for which many forces converged. Therefore, it’s a tremendously complex crime that mixes homophobia, race, and caring for the mentally ill into a ridiculously tangled web.

Maybe, just maybe, the way your life ended so brutally will add to the rich legacy you left in life. Destiny can be funny that way. This is very difficult and perhaps politically incorrect to write, but had a lesser known and loved person died last Tuesday, would the outcry be so loud for having allowed a clearly dangerous person a one-hour leave from that hospital? And if, as I fear, your assailant is found not criminally responsible of second-degree murder, could this not mark the beginning of public demands for an overhaul of our judiscial and mental-health systems?

I need to believe that something good, something greater, will come out of your death, Raymond, not just perfunctory “justice.” You were such an agent of change in life that we owe it to ourselves to be agents of change in honour of your life.

And for all those wonderful hugs.

Normally, my workday doesn’t allow me to take much of a break, but today was different: a call took less time than expected, so I could have a late lunch before my next call while reading the CBC News and CBC Nova Scotia websites. The story that greeted me at the latter was this one:

Gay activist’s beating death prompts murder charge

Of course I clicked on the link and my heart stopped as I read the caption for the photo at the top of this news story. I stared at the name: Raymond Taavel. My brain refused to believe it. There must have been some mistake. My eyes wanted to see that it was Raymond kneeling in that picture, but it didn’t compute: it definitely wasn’t Raymond, showing respect for a fallen comrade; it was a woman I did not know, setting up a memorial for Raymond.

Raymond is dead?

Raymond is dead.

Worse, Raymond was murdered.

Image upon image flashed before my eyes in an instant, as did thought after thought, memory after memory. One distinct memory: that of getting hugged by Raymond. Tall and very slim, Raymond somehow still managed to give bear hugs. In that instant I remembered and felt his skinniness and his warmth. And then I thought about how I would never feel that again.

I tried to remember the last time I saw him, the last time I spoke to him, the last time we e-mailed each other, the last time we commented on each other’s status on Facebook.

I think the last time I saw him was in Halifax, on Grafton Street, with NowEx just a few days before we wed. It was cold outside that night so we didn’t stand there long to chat.

The last time we spoke was when he called me in Montreal so we could talk about transferring control of the Halifax Pride site to people back in Halifax.

The last time we e-mailed? That one makes me sad right now. He was on some pan-Canadian vacation tour last year and mentioned he might be in Montreal in mid-June. He asked me how I would feel about having “a blue nose couch surfer” at my place. But last year, as those who could endure reading this blog know, was not a good year for me and I didn’t have it in me to entertain. So, after delaying a few days, I wrote back to tell him that I couldn’t entertain but would love to see him when he’d be in town. I think his plans changed and he didn’t make it to Montreal after all, so that “bite to eat” never happened.

In addition to being a GLBT activist, Raymond was a political junky for as long as I can remember. I recall a conversation we had once in the late ’90s or early ’00s at the original Menz Bar — not the one in front of which he was murdered — about the NDP which had dwindled to a dozen MPs in the House of Commons. “The NDP has become irrelevant,” he declared, “it has to change.” But as many have said in various tributes over the past 24 hours, Raymond was persistent and optimistic. He stuck it out with the NDP and lived to see it form the government in Nova Scotia and the official opposition in Ottawa.

I also remember being a little pissed off at Raymond when I thought I might have a chance to get something on with a guy whom I’ll call Mr. Sailor, only to find a few days later the Raymond had snagged him first. Now, as I think back to that, I smile. I have to say, Raymond: I always thought you had good taste in men.

I look at your picture, Raymond, and I still can’t believe you’re gone. It hurts to look at your Facebook page. Yet, as I think of you right now, I have an image of you with a martini glass in your hand. I don’t know if I ever actually saw you with a martini glass in your hand, but that’s still the image that comes to my mind.

Imagine my surprise a few nights ago when I tried to use my debit card at a Double Pizza outlet downtown but the little device declared not once, not twice, but thrice that there were “insufficient funds” in my account to cover a measly 7 dollar purchase.

According to the “Cash Flow” tab in my fancy dandy budget, there should always be extra money sitting in my account because of the amounts I set aside every paycheque. What’s more, I have a $700 overdraft on my account, so it takes a lot to crash through the bottom. Either Double Pizza’s direct-debit device was defective or something fraudulant happened in my account.

After my third attempt, I looked dejectedly at the pizza and fries on the counter and told the guy at the cash, “It looks like that food is going to go to waste.” But much to my surprise he said, “No, no, no, go ahead and eat, and come back later to pay me.” I frankly couldn’t believe that such trust could exist today in a big city — or anywhere, for that matter — but I suppose I don’t look like the kind of guy who would deliberately try to pull a fast one.

So, I ate and immediately trekked east on Sainte-Catherine to find the nearest branch of my bank with a banking machine. First, I inquired on the balance in my account and got that sinking feeling when I saw that it was indeed in the red by more than $700. Next, wanting to do good by the guy at Double Pizza, I withdrew $20 from my line of credit, walked back to pay him, and took the métro back home so that I could immediately sign into my online banking to find out what the heck was going on.

It turns out my building’s super made the first mistake. She made two deposits for February’s rent. For her first deposit, she forgot to change the date on her stamp, so the date appearing on the back of the cheques for that batch was January 4. In that batch she mistakenly included my post-dated cheque for March’s rent. Then for her second deposit, which she correctly dated with a February date, she included my February rent cheque. Once in the system, though, there are no further checks; there is no system to verify the value date on cheques, so both my February and March rent cleared my account on February 3.

Fortunately, because of the funds in my account on that date plus my overdraft, the second rent cheque didn’t bounce. That’s good, because I learned later that the fee nowadays for a NSF cheque is $42.50. However, there’s a $5 fee for going into overdraft plus so many cents’ interest for each day I’m in overdraft. While we’re only talking about $7 and some change, I argued that, on principle, I shouldn’t have to pay that fee because I didn’t deliberately go into overdraft. My bank, which is also my employer, readily agreed and immediately reimbursed me.

But seeing my account in negative territory forced me to look again at my budgeting workbook. Indeed, this incident had the effect of putting me back to zero — of starting on a clean slate. Plus you’ll recall that I had an uneasy feeling about my workbook because it looked like it worked but I couldn’t understand how and why. It’s only after spending nearly two hours studying every little formula throughout the workbook that I finally found MY mistake: in one spot, I was effectively counting the same amount twice! I thought about how my dear Cleopatrick would have a good laugh about that, seeing that I once “accused” him of double-counting, and here I was doing the same thing!

I would have had nearly $400 sitting around for later use if it hadn’t been for my mistake, meaning I still would have gone in overdraft but I wouldn’t have busted through the floor. In other words, I still would have had to make the argument that I shouldn’t have to pay overdraft fees, but I wouldn’t have had that moment of panic at Double Pizza. Plus I probably only would have discovered my super’s mistake this weekend.

Bottom line — pardon the pun — I fixed my workbook, transferred funds from my line of credit to create the savings I thought I had, and rejigged my expenses for February so that I’ll be on a tighter (but workable) budget than usual for the next two weeks. That’s no biggie because I’m not much in the mood for going out and doing much in the middle of February. Plus my March rent has been paid a full month ahead of time. So maybe my super’s mistake was a good thing in the end, as it finally made glaringly obvious my own mistake and I can now have full confidence in my masterful workbook.

I would love it if the old man who owns the building could be convinced of having us on pre-authorized debits. Mistakes can happen with those, too, but not as much if someone knowledgeable were to handle them. Ahem! Unfortunately, the old man doesn’t deal with the bank where I work.

I went to bed shortly before midnight last night, dead tired and prepared to sleep at least 8 hours. However, shortly before 1:00 am, a loud THUD resounded from upstairs (i.e., where the Family-From-Hell resides) and woke me up. I swear they throw bowling balls on the floor up there! The end result, though, is that I couldn’t fall back to sleep, and I’ve found that if I can’t fall back to sleep after a half-hour of tossing and turning, it’s better to get up for a little while and then go back to bed.

Thus I found myself watching a bit of TV, including an infomercial on The Magic Jack, a VoIP device that costs a fraction of what I pay every year for phone service from Bell. It sounds almost too good to be true! From what I gather, given that I already get my Internet service from the local cable company, I could have a slightly more expensive variation of this thing and not have a computer turned on all the time in order for it to work. Obviously, recalling that I know of someone locally who got this gizmo a while back and being extra budget-conscious (obsessed?) lately, I couldn’t help but want to look more deeply into this possibility.

Bell pissed me off again recently, which is something it seemed particularly gifted at doing. I mean, at the best of times, Bell annoys me by wasting so much paper with at least one promotional letter per month plus sending me an envelope to pay my bill even though I’ve been on pre-authorized debit for at least a year. I was all happy with myself back in November when I found a way of saving over $10/month on phone services I didn’t use. However, this month Bell increased the cost of my long-distance plan by $5/month, so coupled with its $2/month basic fee increase and the Québec government’s 1 percent increase on the sales tax, my monthly savings have shrunk to less than $3/month. When I figured this out, I tried to look on the bright side and thought to myself, “Well, if I hadn’t asked for the useless services to be removed, I would be at well over $100/month by now.” Except this product has now come back to my attention, and I figure that not only could I reduce my phone budget by nearly 90% per year, but I could finally stick it to Bell.

I would obviously lose my current “514″ phone number in order to get another one, but I’m not as attached to it as I was to my “902″ number in Nova Scotia, which I held for some 15 years. But the thought of redirecting ≈ $900 per year on debt or savings or vacation money has the ol’ wheels in my head turning. And I’m sure my financial hero Gail would agree that every little bit counts.

I suppose wishes for a Happy New Year are in order even though, unbelievably, we’re almost at the mid-point of January already. Indeed, the first two work weeks of 2012 are already done, although the first, for me, was only three days long.

I’ve had a whole whack of blog topics come to mind in the month since my last entry, but somehow I got distracted by other things.

Wondering If It Works
Many months ago, the geek in me found that it was possible to edit what’s known as the .htaccess file for a website to exclude visits from anyone whose IP is from a specific country. For instance, one common practice is to exclude anyone with a Russian IP given how many spammers use that set of IPs. But for my part, in an attempt to feel more free to write what I wanted in aMMusing, I added commands to exclude all IPs from a particular country in North America. You’ve got three guesses (literally!) and the first two don’t count. I’m not certain these commands really work, but like a gift, it’s the thought that counts, I suppose.

A Marvel I Don’t Understand
I told you at great lengths back in October that I did my budget this fall on a massive spreadsheet. It seems to be working well three months into maintaining it, although I can’t understand why. Crazy, eh? I mean, I developed it so I should be able to understand it! Then again, this isn’t the first time I developed something that works without understanding why. Some would say I’ve become totally obsessed with my budget spreadsheet, as I keep working on it and looking at how the numbers are playing out; however, there’s something extremely empowering about it for me since it’s about looking towards the future and figuring out how to build an emergency nestegg (and how fast) and how I’ll pay to replace my car (which I expect to do around Junior’s 10th anniversary in Spring 2013).

My financial hero these days is Canadian best-selling author and host of ‘Til Debt Do U$ Part (with the “Home Edition” aired on HGTV), Gail Vaz-Oxlade. Not only does she make a lot of sense, but her blunt “tough love” bits of advice pass well because of her delightful accent (she was born in Jamaica).

Among Vaz-Oxlade’s bits of advice, there’s the need to create a budget. Some people equate “budget” with “cutting back,” just like others equate “diet” with “losing weight,” but that’s not her point. Instead, it’s the preliminary step to finding out exactly how much money is coming in and how much is going out on what. It has to include not just weekly or monthly spending but quarterly and annual obligations as well, like property taxes, water taxes, haircuts, dentist visits, vehicule registration, and so on. That’s the point where one sees where there’s fat that can be trimmed or cut out entirely.

She gets the people on her show to stop using credit cards and even debit cards and rely only on cash which she places in specifically labelled jars. (Personally I use my debit card as cash and rarely to get cash from an ATM, and I find I spend less that way than having loose cash in my wallet and pocket.) In some more extreme cases, she cuts back participants’ expenses by as much as 90 percent. If they complete the challenges she imposes on them over a few weeks, she gives them up to $5,000 to go towards their debt.

I started with my budget as she suggests and found that, although I’m in debt, my income is greater than my expenses (unlike most of her participants). That’s the most enviable situation to be in. For sure, I could go to a barber instead of the delightful Gabriel for my haircuts, but that would only save me about $8 per paycheque and that cutback (pardon the pun) isn’t necessary at this point. In the end, my budget maps not only the net amount of each expense, but also the monthly and, more importantly, the per-paycheque net amount for each. Indeed, I always wondered why the two “extra” pay periods for someone like myself who’s paid every two weeks don’t seem to be “extra pay days” as one would expect when just looking at the surface.

I then considered, but stopped short on, imposing the “magic jars” system on myself. Instead, I took a two-pronged approach: the “calendar” approach for my cash flow in one sheet so that I can see when certain recurring amounts go out, and a combined “virtual savings accounts / daily expenses” approach in another sheet for daily expenses including those I automatically set aside (i.e., not spend right away), namely 6 fixed amounts ranging from $4.20 to $43.30 per paycheque for haircuts or any of those irregular or occasional musts.

As a result, in the cash flow sheet, I have only one line per pay period for stuff I lumped together like food and other expenses. During the current period, that amount goes up based on the entries I make on my daily expenses sheet. On payday, the surplus or deficit from the previous period is added to or subtracted from the net paycheque — often when there’s a surplus, I put it on my line of credit — and the 6 amounts above are immediately deducted from that “lumped together” total so that I will have the cash to pay for those things when they’re due. That leaves me with the remainder to play with, but although sometimes it seems like the cash flow is in the red, in reality the variable accumulated sum of those 6 “virtual accounts” remain part of the actual balance in my bank account.

What’s discombobulating about this approach is that the balance in my bank account doesn’t mean anything anymore. It seems like it should be heading into negative territory one of these months, but as long as I trust only what I see in my spreadsheet for any given day, that’s really where I stand. I don’t know how many times I re-examined my formulas to make sure I’m not double-counting (or not counting) some expenses, but the logic holds even though the bottom line in my bank account never seems to add up to anything I see on my spreadsheets.

So, I’m staying the course. I think the worse thing that can happen is that I’ll find that I’ve been too aggressive attacking my debt — it looks like I’m putting over 24% of my net towards debt repayment, which I gather is about 9% more than what Vaz-Oxlade suggests is optimum, although her 15% figure might be for when someone HAS to pay more than that in order not to sink further in debt — in which case I’ll just have to backpeddle a little bit on that front. Besides, even if it’s only a few dollars here and there, keeping one’s debt as low as possible means lower monthly interest charges on the line of credit on which I consolidate my credit-card expenses. Not only is the interest rate much lower on the line of credit, but the interest is paid monthly from my main account, meaning the outstanding balance on credit doesn’t balloon, not to mention that I never pay a penny in interest on credit cards due to the 21-day grace period.

Having Much of a Life Lately?
As you can tell, not really, but unlike a year or so ago, that’s not depressing me. Funny how only a few months in therapy changed my outlook so fundamentally.

Like I said, the budget thing has become very empowering for me. It’s actually set up to be the worse-case scenario, yet despite my expensive screw-up a month ago, it still looks like I’ll be relatively debt-free by the end of 2013. Given how time flies, that’s nothing and extremely encouraging! While I’m currently not following Vaz-Oxlade’s “pay yourself first” suggestion, that’s only because I have something up my sleeve that will turn this worse-case scenario on its head.

But I haven’t been going out much lately, either. I get that way in winter. However, if I must be candid, I haven’t felt like it because of the 20 or so pounds I gained in the last two years. A lot of my clothes doesn’t fit well, but rather than buy new clothes, I prefer to lose the weight. Granted, by that time, that clothes will be in need of replacing, too, but I rather buy “skinny clothes” than adapt and buy “fat clothes.” I may like bears but I don’t see myself as one. Besides, I prefer hunky bears over fatty bears.

Any Vacation Plans?
Yup! That’s in the budget and it’s also why I want to lose weight. My first vacation will be for a week around Easter when I’ll be flying to Moncton and spend that time with my mom. But the second vacation — the “for me” fun vacation — will be the first two full weeks of August when I plan to spend a few days in Provincetown and then drive up the coast to Moncton (again) and Halifax. It’s not my dream vacation to Mykonos just yet, but I hope that’ll come in 2013 or 2014, especially if I can find someone to travel with. It seems like it would be more fun to travel to Greece with a friend than on my own.

Do You Still Follow Politics?
Avidly! But whether it’s in Québec or Canada or the U.S., there just seems to be so much I could be railing against that I don’t know where to start. However, combined with the uncertain economy, politics has become rather depressing. There comes a point where it’s better to go inside a little bubble to preserve one’s sanity.

There’s no two ways about it… This time I really messed up.

It’s probably not wise of me to admit to what happened, but then again, what’s done is done and it happens to be true.

I got pulled over this morning on Autoroute Ville-Marie for speeding. I’m not denying that I was speeding nor am I denying that I tend to drive fast. However, what I’m pissed off about is that I don’t believe I was going as fast as the officer claimed. In fact, I think I’m being accused of going 20 km/h (12 mph) faster than I think I was.

The official speed limit on the Ville-Marie, like on other urban freeways in Montréal, is 70 km/h (about 45 mph). Not that it matters, but no one respects that speed. In fact, I’d say that if one follows the flow in order not to get plowed down by others, the average speed is between 80 to 100 km/h (about 50 to 60 mph).

That said, I admit I was going faster than that, which places me in the wrong no matter how I look at it. The problem is that the officer’s assessment of my speed makes the difference between “speeding” and “excessive speeding,” which means not only a much heftier fine but also a shitload more demerit points.

However, does ANYONE have the time and energy to contest something like this? How can I be sure that he clocked my car and not another one nearby? I very respectfully asked the officer that question. I wasn’t denying that I was speeding but not to the extent he claimed …but how could I prove that? He snidely responded that he’s a professional who does this job every day and it was unlikely that he’s wrong (as if no human, including cops, ever make mistakes), but I can take it to court.

The damage? A few bucks over $1,000 and 14 demerit points. But wait! It gets worse.

Unbeknownst to me, my driver’s license wasn’t paid for!

Now you’re probably thinking, “Come on, Maurice! How can you not know that?” But I honestly thought that the amount I paid on time last August was meant to cover everything: car registration including public insurance AND permit renewal. However, the officer informed me that my permit has been invalid since my birthday …in 2009!

More than two years !!!

Fortunately, the fine is the same whether it’s one week or more than two years late: $444 including fees. But I think you’re getting the picture that my normally $7 breakfast at the Resto du Village ended up costing me a king’s ransom.

Okay. Now here’s something I didn’t blog about because I was too embarrassed when it happened. But now I’m writing about it to explain why I’m just going to take my lumps and move along.

I got pulled over early last January. Long story short: that officer cited me for not respecting a highway sign on the grounds that he, too, was going too fast. That incident happened before I admitted to myself that I was in the throes of “Depression Light” and, when I did admit to it, the ticket sat there, unpaid. Then, on that hot summer morning just hours before my first appointment with Lucy, someone knocked on my door: it was a man I described to friends and Lucy as the size and build of a fridge but known in fact as a bailiff, coming to arrest me unless I paid that fine right then and there.

Let’s just say that I successfully pleaded with him not to put the handcuffs on me (although he was all horny to do so) as we went to the nearest branch of my bank so that I could pay him cash. And in the following days, I uncovered an unpaid parking ticket I had left on a desk the night I got it and paid it online, as the threat of being arrested was one experience I didn’t ever want to experience again.

Obviously I can’t and won’t contest the ticket about the permit even though I swear I never got a notice to renew. Even at my lowest point, I knew what I would get in the mail; I just chose to ignore it. Even more obviously, though, is that I won’t be moving the car an inch until my permit is renewed. Until then, it’s the metro for me.

However, it pisses me off feeling I don’t believe I have a leg to stand on to argue against the severity of the speeding ticket. I’m told (although I won’t tell you by who) that I could show up in court and plead. But from what I’ve been told and what I’ve read, it wouldn’t be worth the stress and the time off work.

So while I really, really hate feeling cornered like this, I’m choosing to simply pay. And although I have 30 days to plead, the cheques will be in the mail by Friday. Then I’ll pick myself up, dust myself off, curse a little, and move on …more slowly.

Has it really been a month already since my last blog entry?! I guess so… That means it’s also been exactly a month since my last vist with Lucy. Funny, but it feels like 10 days or 10 months ago — fairly recent or another long-ago chapter.

Tons of sundry topic worthy of a blog chat (or rant) have popped into my mind in the last month, so I think I should just do a “This and That” grab-bag entry like Torn used to do when he would blog. (His readers haven’t enitrely given up on him even though his life is about to get increasingly busy since he decided to enrol in a master’s program in education, which is a huge and wonderful decision on his part.)

The Attempt to Quit: Update
I’m sad to say it’s not going very well. I currently smoke about half a dozen cigarettes per day. On the plus side, that’s five times fewer than the day I tried quitting and I hardly cough anymore, but on the down side, that’s still far from my goal of not smoking at all. However, there’s another plus side: unlike past attempts when I would tell myself that I would only be a light smoker (and, of course, would progress back to being a heavy smoker within a few weeks), I’m still in the “quitting” mindset.

I’m viewing my current smoking status as a temporary setback and I’m not giving up on trying to quit. But this time I categorically learned that, more than the first coffee of the day or after meals, work-related stress is my downfall. I only smoke in one room at home and never while I’m out. In fact, I’m well beyond feeling that panic when I leave the apartment without ciggies. To me, that’s still progress and I’m choosing to view the positives as more significant than the negatives — the chief negative being that I believed that this treatment would be any different than any other method of quitting.

Bad Neighbours
When I look back at this blog in its nearly 10 years of existence, I realize that I’ve done a hell of a lot of bitching about my neighbours. A part of me wonders if I’m really that unlucky and another part fears that I’m too demanding and intolerant. But at least now, after therapy, I understand better why it upsets me so much and that the truth is somewhere in between.

Last night I learned that the landlord has just mailed a registered letter to my neighbours upstairs. That’s huge and it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t persisted with the janitor, an approach I likely would not have pursued with as much persistence prior to therapy. And I feel no guilt because clearly I’m in the right: boundaries need to be respected and I am entitled to insist that they be respected, an entitlement I second-guessed for myself in the past.

Today — Saturday — they were particularly AWFUL up until about 15 minutes ago when they stepped out for a while. I realize now that it’s not just the kids but also daddy, whose step is remarkably heavy for a guy who’s average to diminutive in size. I felt like going up and telling them that they are the most inconsiderate neighbours I have ever had, but unfortunately that’s not true: they are AMONG the inconsiderate neighbours I have had. But clearly it would go right over their heads, in good part because they can hardly speak English or French and my Mandarin is non-existant.

Not All Black and White
What a perfect segue for the immigrant guide put out this week by the city of Gatineau, on the Québec side of the Ottawa River opposite our national capital.

The village of Hérouxville started a huge controversy when it released a code of conduct for immigrants in 2007, which was filled with xenophobic “codes” like “It’s illegal to lapidate or kill one’s wife.” What made the Hérouxville code so controversial is that the village had precisely two immigrants, one of which was a Asian child adopted at a very young age by the Québécois family. What followed was a series of wrenching public hearings, with the fire fanned by the right-wing ADQ the led by Mario Dumont, as the rest of Canada smugly looked on and derided Québec, without a trace of irony, as the country’s most racist province.

As a francophone from outside Québec who came of age during the era of Prime Minister Trudeau, I am fundamentally in support of multiculturalism. No one should be forced to erase and forget their cultural history. However, I also believe it has to be woven into a distinctly Canadian identity. It’s unfortunate, though, that political correctness has led to many, many blunders.

There are very valid reasons why some people chose to leave their own country to come to Canada. In some cases, the reasons are economic; in others, the reasons are persecution and war. That said, there’s nowhere in the world I could go and expect my “Canadianess” to trump local values, nor would it be reasonable for me to expect that. Indeed, when in Rome, one has to do as the Romans. To some extent, that has to be true in Canada as well, except that what made Canada distinct in the last half-century or so is that there wasn’t an outright expectation that immigrants had to deny their essential identity and assimilate into a melting pot. The expectation was more one of integration coupled with mutual respect.

I hate to admit it, but there is, at least in my mind, a link between this controversy and my fucking neighbours.

Whether it stems from British and French legal tradition — let’s not forget that, constitutionally, Canada is a nation founded by the French and English — or our huge territory for a puny population, respect of space and privacy is, I would argue, an implicit Canadian value. If someone comes from a chronically overpopulated place, they might be more accepting of always overhearing others. Of course, that’s also a fact of life in large Canadian cities like Montréal, Toronto or Vancouver, but certainly not to same extent.

As for the “smelly food” edict that caused so much stir in the Gatineau guide, that’s a tough one. One the one hand — and perhaps most significantly — the variety of tastes we can enjoy now in Canada is remarkable compared to 50 years ago. But, on the other hand, I’m remembering when my brother and sister-in-law were in town last July and we ended up going through my apartment to figure out if some small animal had died in a wall in my office. Turned out it was the neighbours’ stinky food and it took nearly a day for the smell to dissipate.

That said, I would admit that was only a minor inconvenience and I probably would have forgotten about it had food smells been their only “offense.” Certainly I never would have gone as far as making “no stinky food” a point in an immigrants’ code of conduct! However, where do we draw the line? If I were to kiss a man in Saudi Arabia, I’d be in big trouble. But if someone immigrated to Canada from a country where being gay is outright illegal, that someone should not expect that “value” to hold here is well.

The Fake War!On!Christmas!
But when I wrote earlier that “political correctness has led to many, many blunders,” certainly the whole fake war on Christmas is a prime example.

Indeed, this is case where politically correct zealots have gone too far. I mean, everybody knows I’m no fan of Christmas and I’m certainly not a practicing Christian; however, I can’t deny that I was brought up Catholic, as were generations before me. That’s just a fact. When I wish someone a “Merry Christmas,” my eyes aren’t waxing over at the thought of Baby Jesus in some crib next to an alledged virgin and an old guy who probably couldn’t have gotten it up; I’m just being civil, just as I believe I would be civil when wishing my Muslim co-worker “Eid Mubarak” at the end of Ramadan which he diligently observes. In fact, I’m pretty sure my Muslim co-worker will be wishing me “Merry Christmas” on our last day of work before Christmas.

I suspect that many of those who are the most vocal against the politically correct zealots are Christian zealots who don’t actually know anyone who’s not of a Christian background. It’s right up there with the Hérouxville code of conduct for immigrants …in a place where there’s no immigrant !!! They don’t know what they’re talking about.

Today was my last visit with Lucy.

Today, it’s been a week since I last smoked …and I’m still going insane.

Also today has come to a head a colleague’s continuing behaviour that an expert like Lucy labelled “classic passive aggressive.”

All things considered, though, not a bad day.

Lucy didn’t seem convinced last week that the time to stop therapy had come, but she full-heartedly agreed by the end of today’s session. I reminded her of the guy who came to her in July and contrasted him with the guy in front of her today, which brought her to remark, “Sometimes we have to break down to put ourselves back together, but differently.”

I even referred to today’s incident at work: Before, I’d “own” the situation; now, I’m detached enough to recognize that there’s little I can do about someone else being passive-aggressive. It’s fundamentally HIS problem but he’s making it mine by trying to drag me into his crap. I’m only “involved” to the extent that he’s e-mailing CCs to our supervisor who thinks the whole act is like watching kindergarten kids, and he’s always claiming being too busy to have a chat on the phone. In short, I agreed to (and have) changed some things I do at work; he agreed but hasn’t really changed.

So remind me again how that’s my problem?

Precisely, it isn’t!

We talked about my not smoking for a week, and in her mind that’s the ultimate illustration of having taken control and wanting to take care of myself. I laughed out loud commenting, “I even have fewer headaches …and you know why? Because of these damn glasses I’m wearing now!”

Finally convinced, Lucy seemed pleased for me. “But you’ve worked hard on yourself,” she added. “You haven’t been afraid to consider anything.” I’m probably a psychologist’s dream: I can’t be that much work!

Now if only I weren’t craving a cigarette so much, life would be as close to perfect as I could ever wish…

Nat, formerly known herein as the Bush Whacker, mentioned to me in Facebook her friend’s Mo‘s short-lived blog from 2010 titled The Truth About Quitting.

At this point, I have been FIVE FULL DAYS without a smoke. And this time I mean it! Unlike previous quitting attempts when I would allow myself 1 to 4 ciggie per day by rationalizing that it was one heck of an improvement over 25 to 30 per day, I have not had a single puff, let along a complete smoke, since 5:15 pm on Thursday, November 3. So by all accounts — although Mo has some good points about that which I’ll discuss below — my body should be fully nicotine-free by this time.

I’m not feeling more stressed out than when I would be a few weeks into the first level of the nicotine patch. However — and that’s the fascinating thing for me — I can honestly say for the first time in 30 years that I’m nicotine-free. After all, the patch is nicotine replacement therapy AND I’d still be smoking a little, so the nicotine never completely left me before now. Now let me be clear: I’m still tempted like a sonovabitch, but I think about being nicotine-free and I say to myself, “No, it would be a shame to break that,” so I keep my resolve.

But coming back to Mo’s blog… I love everything she wrote about, including what I disagreed with or can’t relate to.

For you see, Mo quit “cool turkey”. That’s the same as cold turkey except that she had reduced to half a pack a day …over a eight-year period! For my part, I went from about 30 to zero per day overnight …but aided by soft-laser therarpy.

Another huge difference: Over the years, Mo restricted her smoking to one room in her house before finally forcing herself to only smoke outside. As for me, home was my smoking haven! Only when going out or visiting most friends would smoking be an outdoor activity and, unlike Mo, I didn’t have a strong “smoking = solitary” association and even less a “smoking = doing nothing else” association.

I would say the only statement from Mo with which I completely disagree with (or can’t relate to) is “that I don’t really feel any different.” Sorry, Mo, but speak for yourself! In only five days, my coughing has almost vanished and I certainly don’t have coughing fits anymore. A half-a-pack-per-day smoker is nothing compared a pack-plus-per-day smoker, so I suggest that’s why you didn’t notice much change.

That’s my only disagreement, though.

“Quitting wasn’t that hard,” she asserts. “Here is the most common story you’ll hear about nicotine addiction: it is among the most powerful addictions there is, as powerful as cocaine or heroin.” She is absolutely right that is what we hear all the time and she admits that she fully believed it. However, she colourfully writes about what she (and I) HAVEN’T done:

So I imagined the sort of fight I would need to put up against cocaine or heroin addiction. I pictured myself in a Trainspotting-like daze, shaking and sweating, out in my backyard in the middle of the night, flashlight in hand. I would crawl on my hands and knees, through the muck, desperately searching for an old butt that had escaped the outdoor ashtray. I would brush it off when I found it, raise it to my lips, feeling the dirt in my mouth, and light it, cursing its dampness. And then, once it caught, I would have one perfect drag, deep into my lungs, and my body would sink back, satisfied, and there would be some kind of dream sequence. And just like that, I would fail.

So far for me this time around, I haven’t even been more irritable. I’ve only felt occasional waves I would describe as a kind of pressure above the temples or a feeling inside my mouth that makes the urge to smoke flash in front of my eyes. But the smokes remaining from my last pack are still on the kitchen table, unmoved since last Thursday. In fact, when I look at the pack rather than just think about a cigarette, the resolve in my “NO!” is even stronger.

The other insight to which Mo admits not having thought of before trying to quit is that smoking cessation is almost as big a business as smoking itself. And that’s when I think to myself, Yeah …didn’t I just spend nearly $800 for a therapy in which I wouldn’t have believed if it hadn’t been for two friends who managed to quit with it? There’s still a part of me that’s wondering if I’m benefitting from a placibo effect. Certainly a lot more willpower is required than the “stop smoking in one hour” ads suggest! I suppose I can find some consolation in the fact that I’m doing it without any drug.

I love how Mo points out how little real and credible information exists about smoking cessation. I would point out that I’ve long said the same (politically incorrect) thing about “research” on the ills of second-hand smoke, but I digress. She raises a point I have also noticed:

Here is just one example I’ve found of the ways that the discourse of quitting is being shaped directly by the companies behind the drugs and NRTs: try to search for information about what will happen to your body when you quit. No matter how you configure your search, or how many sites you click through on, the majority of the information you find will be strikingly similar. It will divide time into these increments: 20 minutes, 8 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 2-12 weeks, 3-9 months, 5 years, 10 years. For the record, the (almost always uncited) information you find is copyright Johnson and Johnson, makers of Nicorette.

Credit to Mo: she found the copyright holder; I never did. Now my question is this: Am I REALLY nicotine-free by now? I’m expected to believe that what I’m feeling is 100% psychological?

But perhaps my favorite post by Mo is “The Shape of the Relapse Curve,” in which she poses the question that few if any “researchers” are posing but that quitters would like answered: “When is a someone who’s trying to quit most likely to cave?” And she found only one article that suggested that “approximately 90% of smokers who relapse do so within the first 8 days.”

I suppose that means if I make it to next Saturday, I’ll be in the 10%. But that said, even though I’m only five days in, I think I can already relate to Mo’s last thought in her blog: “I don’t miss the actual smoking anymore,” she concludes after 13 weeks of not smoking. “In truth though, I still miss being a smoker.”

I know people who stopped smoking 25 years ago but admit to smoking in their dreams when they’re particularly stressed out, so that indeed tells me how strong the psychological bond to smoking is. I also worry about how interacting with my few smoker friends will be like if I persist at not smoking. I think it’s going to be really weird…