Uniforms, Coffee & Quack.

"So how far away are you from getting your name changed?"
"Five to Ten maybe? What about you?"
"I'm already there."
"Shit."
"Yeah, shit."

And of course the loud grumble of eight hundred midlife crisis motorcyle men broke the silence. No kidding, there was actually eight hundred.

I met Jaysun in college. My sister knew him from basketball and I somehow ended up spending a whole night talking to him on her msn. Eventually we met in one of the cafeteria's near the gym, after my illustration class on a Wednesday. I was wearing a red baseball shirt and my favourite pair of cords. That was almost four years ago.

We never dated. Jaysun was the all star basketball player. He was also at the top of his Police Foundations class, six foot seven and stupidly funny. I was one of the people that semi-confidently walked around with a giant tackle box full of airbrushes, oils and pencil crayons. People looked at us strangely when they saw the bright red and black hair collide with the basketball shorts.
Every Thursday he would come to my house after class and we'd akwardly play fight like silly teenagers showing affection for the first time. We talked about dating once or twice, but there was always an ex girlfriend, or asinine amounts of school work, so we just let it go.
We created an unspoken tension between the two of us. There were times where we ended up fondling eachother in the midst of frustration, but that was always only as far as it went.

After graduation we both went our own ways and up until today, I hadn't seen him in two years.
Jaysun's in the Military now and I'm a normal-looking, redhead. We both eyed eachother in disbelief, and then casually slipped back into our comfort zones.

"You're twenty-five minutes late."
"I'm ten minutes late, you freak."
"When I say 11 o'clock, I expect you to be fifteen minutes early. Military time, dammit."

We went for lunch in a tiny pub on the shore of Lake Erie. We talked about our jobs and our money problems, wives and families. After we stopped along the parkway and lazed about on a little man-made island on the shore, across from Navy Island.
It was a quiet and simple day - perfect in all respects. I miss him so much. The couple of hours that I spent with him today was a giant portal to my past memories and emotions. We never had a chance to see if things between us would ever work, and now both of us are highly committed to two, very different people and my heart feels at a loss.
He muttered to me at one point:

"Why is it that whenever you're in a relationship, you don't want to be in it? And of course, when you're not in one, you always want to be?"

And I casually smiled and poilitely ignored the question, 'cause really, what can I say to that? I agree? I'm in a relationship with a man I completely adore, but at the same time, when I'm with you, I adore you as well? There's nothing that can be said because nothing is all I could and had to say.

Eventually we hobbled back to my car and that's when he told me that he was going to be stationed overseas in a year and for the first time, in a long time, I felt my heart break. Jaysun being in the Military, of course he'd have to go, but for some reason it never registered.

Suddenly there's this overwhelming feeling to be with him every minute of every day. To take him away from this stupid function of fighting other people's battles, and to keep him safe in my incapable arms. What the hell am I to do?

We've decided to spend our weekend together. To go to the beach, and eat hotdogs and ice cream and be silly kids in college again that didn't have to worry about car payments and OSAP loans. We want to be innocent and friendly, but at the same time I realise that there is an ocean of unspoken emotions swelling between the two of us.

I know we're both incapable of hurting our significant others and I know we both hold too much respect for eachother to mess up our futures. So why does it feel so wrong to want to be with him?

Stupid Like Gophers.

I am so hot.

I must be. I've managed to send a marriage into a downward spiral of dubious comments and skeptical glances by simply exisiting... Existing and taking a man to Taco fucking Bell. I honestly give more of the blame to the tacos; they are far more sinful than this sweet, innocent little girl.

This all started before Christmas of last year. A strange, tall man from California had made his way to a shit, little, piss poor town in the quiet suburbs of a booming Canadian tourist community and somehow managed to get a crap job - with me.

I hated him.

He was mean and sarcastic and clever and could insult my tender selfesteem much more effectively than I could his. I obviously kept my distance, and he kept his. It was a perfect non-verbal arrangement that softly existed between the two of us. But of course, that all turned to shit.
Six months later we were buddies. We laughed, we talked, we took turns insulting the Pantry Man with back-to-back quips during our lunch break - it was awesome. Our friendship blossomed into a bitter and twisted commentary of overly-sarcastic boorishness and silly antics. We obviously decided that it was time to outgrow the shackles of our confined business arrangement and explore the opportunities of a friendship outside of work. But of course there was a problem: He was married.
Apparently there's a general train of thought amoungst the majority of women that tends to become much more vivid after marriage. And this opinion is of course, that their husbands are not allowed to exist in social situations with other women. Especially social situations that involve the two of them alone, eating tacos... Fucking tacos!

Allow me to give you the 411 of the marital status of my friend and co-worker:

In his tender, early twenties he moved from sunny California to wed a woman, ten years older, who owns two, almost-teenage children from her first marriage. Up until last week, he had been supporting her, and one of her children on a job that pays less than $1,300 a month, since Christmas, 2004. That alone, pisses me off. If you were stupid enough to have kids, then you need to be smart enough to get your ass off the couch and get a god damned job. I don't care if you gotta whore yourself to crusty old men on the street. They're your kids, you fucking provide for 'em. And don't ask your twenty-something husband to take you to the movies when he doesn't know how he's going to afford groceries till the end of the week to feed YOUR fucking kids. Balls to that.
And now he has no family except his wife. He left them all behind to move to a whole new country to marry a woman he is desperately in love with and she's worried that I'm going to seduce him over halfassed Mexican fast food.That is insulting. Partially because I wouldn't wine and dine someone at Taco Bell, but mostly because I'm not a whore. Or a homewrecker. I'm just a bitch who wants to hang out with a guy who has zero friends and zero family and a big fat zero of a life. But I bit my tongue. He is after all, my friend and he is happily married.

Lately the bombardment of ridiculous comments and absolutely asinine accusations have thrown me right off the handle. His wife had always been a little edgy in regards to my friendship with her husband and fair enough, she doesn't know me. But I have made attempts to try and befriend her, to show her that I'm nothing more than a giant nerd who wants to browse Spawn.com with her husband and go on twenty minute road trips to rid my computer of it's overwhelming virus. I've taken her to the movies, offered to dye her hair. Offered my friend money to buy her presents that he can't afford to buy her... All of which have ended with the ridiculous question of, "Did you sleep with her?"And now, my friend and I are left to discuss the conclusions of her manic mind in the recesses of Wal Mart. And the only thing we've decided is that our friendship is to be confined to the walls of our employment.

I lost a friend because she can't find enough faith in herself to find faith in her husband...

"It seems to me if you can't trust... You can't be trusted."