I Swear I Won't Let 2014 Become 2012

By that, of course, I mean contend for the title of ''worst year of my life''. It's not too late to jump off the train and head somewhere else, and I guess that starts in early April, when I move yet again (this time, solo).

It won't be easy, especially financially, but it needs to be made.

It's unfortunate that the people who treat me the best are so far away (Calgary, Banff, Mexico, NYC) and I feel disconnected and taken advantage of and double-crossed a lot in this City I feel less and less at home in, but am legally bound to remain in until what is now June 2015 (part of my new lease... on life?), though there are ways around that.

You kind of have to feel dumb following the advice of an internet meme, but for the second time in little more than a year:

And when I realized I did, I fucked the hell off. No more being sucked in, no more innocent-bystander shit ruining my health and life.

Life Lessons #12 & 35

Everyone you know will let you down.

Family - siblings, parents, children. Relatives. By not showing up, by fighting over feeble matters, by looking after themselves.

Friends - best or otherwise - or mere acquaintances, by missing your birthday, neglecting to keep in touch, generally not caring about your well-being beyond the ''how's it going? Hope you're doing well!'' portion of communication.

Your spouse, through lies, things untold, cheating on you with an old, bald, toothless guy or worse - a Bruno Mars-looking motherfucker you always think of when a shitty song plays on the radio or TV (or a Madonna lookalike for girls, which encompasses all of these adjectives).

Strangers will let you down.

Sports teams, athletes, entertainers. Idols.

Politicians pretty much get paid for letting you down.

Things will let you down, too: your car, your TV, public transit, piping systems, air conditioners, your computer, your phone.

What's important, what matters most, is how you're going to deal with it, the amount of bullshit you're willing to put up from each of those sources before you snap and kick them to the curb, always keeping in mind we only have one life, we never know when it's going to end for any of us (unless someone takes matters into their own hands), and it's best to be with people you love/enjoy/appreciate than with people you hate - or alone.

It's normal not to have the same level of tolerance to the bullshit for everyone: I'll forgive my brother or woman (not that I would 'own' the woman, just the one I'd be with at the time) a lot more crap than I would someone I see once a year or less.

But you can't hold a grudge with someone for a long time if it's for something stupid (say, someone didn't return a book you lent them), you have to pick your battles. Especially for one that threatens to have you never see that person again.

On the other hand, life isn't a fucking slogan, either. Sayings like this one piss me off to the extreme (as Vanilla Ice would say):

Because people can let you down even if you don't ''put yourself in that position'', even if you have no fucking expectations towards them, just because they're fucking human beings and that's what we do - we think of #1, or we don't think at all. It's the nature of the beast.

I know, the Holidays are a time to celebrate, be festive, happy, but it's also a time where those who don't have the means to share and spend time with others become sadder and more depressed than ever; the poor remain poor, the needy are still in need. And the betrayed remain stabbed in the back. I'm just thinking of them today.

The Erica Situation

(pictures were removed because they don't add anything to the story)

While I sort of alluded to her here before in The Jenn Fiasco, Erica was a beast all her own.

If you would ask her about the idiom that claims all men to be ''dicks'', not only would she agree, but she would seriously wonder what is wrong with that and would claim ''the more the merrier''. But first things first...

The Hollywood-esque Hook-Up:

Riding the subway on the way home after school in September 1994, I spot this really cute, tiny, red-haired, thick-lipped strawberry-nosed girl who looks younger than me - and she's eyeing me too. For two stations we look into another's eyes, smile, then people come in and out, she's so small I lose track of her.

At Vendôme, where I get out, I check to see if I can spot her - in vain. No sign of her whatsoever.

I get on the bus, a bit sad but knowing that - as always - I'll have forgotten it in a few hours' time. I'm sitting down, first seat next to the back door, listening to my Discman, reading the lyrics to the Beastie Boys' Check Your Head while they bang in my earphones, when I look up and see her standing right in front of me. Despite our clear flirtation earlier, having her so close in front of me when I thought I'd lost her made me nervous, and I looked away, always trying to steal a glance here and there until it's my turn to get off, hoping she doesn't do it first.

The street I lived on, Melrose, is between two stops (Wilson and Draper, respectively), and seeing as she's not getting off at the first, I wait until the latter to exit. As soon as I hit the sidewalk, I stare right back into the bus at her, see she's looking at me, and wave at her to follow me out. She makes this puzzled look but I repeat the gesture, and as the bus trails away, start making a run to the following stop - Madison. She exits at Madison and walks towards me until we're face-to-face, silent, shy, awkward but also excited, nervous, feeling a weird adrenaline rush that only hard drugs such as pure lust can provoke.

I suggest we sit on a park bench and talk - and we sit there for over an hour. at one point she asks me what I'm doing that night, and I reply with a confident ''NOTHING!, You?'' and she tells me about this after-school economics seminar she's got to go to - at which point I remember I'm going to the same one: ''Me too! I totally forgot! At Marymount Academy on Côte-St-Luc!''

Oddly enough, we were in the same grade at different schools, she was 3 years older than I was but had been held back because the education she had received in her native Portugal wasn't found to be equivalent to our system's, and we were both enrolled in the same after-school economics/entrepreneurship program. It was going to be great: I could continue hitting on her there - all night.

It turns out we were in separate groups, but at break time we'd always get together. Within the end of the month we were dating, meeting each other's friends, maybe even parents. I saw hers a lot despite having never seen another room in her house than the living room. Her mom loved me, her dad always gave me a look that said ''when I kill you, I will shit in your mouth then feed you to starving pitbulls''. Oddly enough, back in the day, those were typical parental reactions to my presence...

By Christmas, we had already each purchased tickets to one another's Graduations. In January she got pregnant, got aborted on Valentine's Day and by March I learned that she had, on average, cheated on me more than once a day. Close to 3, actually. Usually with her ex, Enrik, a fellow Midget-AAA hockey player also drafted by the Laval Titans - but also with guys who gave her rides home from school in exchange for blowjobs, cab drivers who would take her anywhere at any time for the same deal, as well as one fucktard she kind of actually started dating at the same time. They met after fucking in the bathroom at the old Madhatter's, when it was on Peel street. He had a stupid-ass last-name-as-first-name thing going on, something like Anderson, but maybe not; straight hair to his chin, wore wife-beaters... a real fucking douchebag. If he's still alive today, I'm sure his skin's fucking orange, he lives in Jersey and drives a red sports car.

Worse of the matter is she'd give me signs, too, almost all the time, but she was telling those stories as if they were happening to her best friend, who I'd met and had introduced herself as ''yeah, I'm Claudine, the slut from all her stories''. Needless to say, though, that when I learned the truth, I wanted nothing to do with her anymore. And I never spoke to her ever again, but she did write me from most major destinations when she went on a European vacation during the summer, a Tour Of Cocks, if you will, where she would either send me pictures of her with other guys, or just postcards with messages like ''I just got acquainted with a boatload of sailors here in Vienna, and I'm particularly fond of Austrian sausages now''.

I remember when I found out about her infidelities, and we had a long conversation about the ethics of a relationship and how humans, after all, are still fucking animals. She said: ''so what if on my way to school or work, I see someone I want to fuck and we stop and do it and continue on our merry way?'', and it was the very first time I'd heard a woman talk like the most macho man.

Plus, for some reason, I imagine with those guys it was a lot less clinical than with me, where most times we'd be spooning on a couch watching TV and she'd just lift her leg up, grab my dick in my pants and shove it inside her dry cunt, irritating the both of us until she would manage to produce juices. All of this in the quietest of silences. I was nothing more than the 10-inch dildo waiting at home for the nightly fill.