The Choosing.

So this is something that I have thought about doing for a while. Sharing with you not advice, or rules, or opinions or anything like that. But today I am choosing to share with you a morsel of one of my friendships. And today I will tell you of The Choosing.

Let me take you through a bit of the process I go through when choosing a nickname/title for a friend. And by doing so telling you about a friend of mine.

So, we were never close enough to consider each other part of the pseudo or non-blood families we create for ourselves, and we were never romantically linked so no titles related to those would work. She's a pastor's daughter, but she's never looked at that as a way to define herself by either rebelling against it or playing it up. She's one of those people that has only really ever defined herself by being herself. I could call her The Coyote, not because she resembles a coyote (which she absolutely does not) but because we both describe our own singing voices with the same movie quote. "Like a coyote in a trash compactor," but I feel like giving her a nickname based on an inside joke just wouldn't do her the justice she deserves. Now because it's her I find this to be a little more difficult because I've never been able to pin her down or capture even a bit of her adequately, she has always been illusive to me in one way or another. I could call her The fox for the reasons above, but that might imply that she is hunted, but she is quite clever, and not bad on the eyes either for the other connotation of fox. We do have plenty in common but we were never two peas from the same pod, there is enough different between us for that analogy not to work. Calling her the variable might work, the unknown element, X in the equation, but that could make her seem like she is the answer to a question, or some missing piece but like I said above we were never romantically linked. Because if she is X, she has already found her Y. But if there is one thing I know for sure, she is not just one single thing, but many things, a blend or even an amalgam if you will. But that just doesn't really feel right. I could call her A, but that is too simple for her, unless of course it was a stylised A. Now what I could do is refer to her as the Greek letter alpha, it is after all still an A, which is the first letter of her name after all, and it could also stand for amalgam. But as well I do associate her with the beginning of something in my life. And so it is decided, she is alpha.

Post Script: She once asked me which song I would use to best describe her and I told her, after a bit if thinking that it was "In the Hall of the Mountain King." And I'd still say it was so if she asked.

The Traveler Letters

So this is something that I have thought about doing for a while. Sharing with you not advice, or rules, or opinions or anything like that. But today I am choosing to share with you a morsel of one of my friendships. And today I will tell you of the Traveler Letters.

Okay, so to start I will explain a little more. I will not be using the real names of my friends, but instead I will be using nicknames, or titles that I have given them. And most of them don't even know that I have done this. And even then I do nit do this for all my friends, but only for those whom I believe have had a good impact on my life.

So, since around mid 2012 I have been writing letters to The Traveler. (He is not named as such because he is constantly traveling, but because I have been around, noticed and still noticing his travels and growth in life. I'm not even sure is he knows that is one of the reasons I gave him that title.) Now in these letters we discuss all matters of both little things and much larger things. We've talked about books, and girls, of our future plans and present activities, and so much more. Needless to say, the Traveler Letters are very important to me, and reading and writing them are some of my favourite things to do.

Some more explanation. As mentioned in my old post entitled "Community" I've moved around a bit, and so building and maintaining friendships have not been the easiest of things in the world for me. But now living in the digital age as we do this has become easier to do. With Facebook, instant messaging, texting, and the like you don't have to live in the same place to do that anymore. But in opposition to this short little burst messages and internet abbreviations are not the best for growing friendships. But then there are e-mails, which is actually what the Traveler Letters actually are. (Now I think of them as letters because I first actually write them out pencil and paper before typing them out and sending them to him.)

Now a bit about me and the Traveler. I have known him since I was in the midst of puberty and he was prepubescent, I can't remember our exact ages, but he had a significantly smaller amount of both hair and height than he does now, and I could not yet grow a full beard or even a proper goatee yet. But before 2010 we had never actually lived in the same town, or even next town over. His parents looked after my summer camp during the off season. But none the less, I've seen him grow up and I'd like to think that he has seen me grow up. I count him as one of my closer friends and greater confidants (one of the reasons I do the Traveler Letters).

So, Traveler when you read this, and I hope you have been reading these lately, I thank you. Our letters help keep me myself, they help me stay grounded, and where I like to be emotionally and mentally.

Post Script: I hope posting on Mondays works for people. Next week I will be telling you about another one of my friends, but after that I will probably be interchanging them with other posts.

Rules (number one): The online to offline transition.

I find it a little odd even if it's about myself, but I like rules... most of the time. But the problem with rules is that there aren't clear rules about everything in life, so I've decided to write some of my own. I'm gonna start with something I know a little about. So these are the rules about making the transition from knowing someone online to knowing them offline as well.

Rule #1: Be close. If you want to transition to an offline relationship of any type whether it be friendship or romantic the first thing you need is to be in relatively close proximity to the person. Now what is relatively close is a matter of personal preference, but you can't be considered in an offline relationship if you only meet once and that's it. But I'm not saying that meeting someone offline for the purpose of meeting them is bad because it isn't it could lead to a stronger online relationship or even it could lead to the desire to make the transition to offline.

Rule #2: Prepare for disappointment. When meeting someone offline prepare yourself for the possibility of being disappointed (or just surprised). Now I will split this into two parts. First visually, second personality.
Visual: I think this is obvious but people are not their profile pictures. One thing I've noticed is that very often profile pictures are people at their best, as well a photo also does not always show the entirety of a person. So when you meet the person they could be having a bad hair day, bad breakout day, or something else that has them not looking their best. You also have to take into account that not all profile pictures are always recent. They could be using their favourite photo of themselves from high school, university or something of that sort and you have to  ask yourself how long ago was that photo taken. Also profile pictures don't give you whole view, they aren't in 3D and sometimes they are just parts of their body or face leaving parts out. Not to mention the possibility of photoshop. In this way you can never judge a person by their profile picture.
Personality: People are not always the same offline as they are online. Just think about it, we are internet people where the tiniest voice can be perceived as being gigantic, where someone shy offline can be a social butterfly online. There are also those people who are just more comfortable with communicating textually over communicating vocally. And then there's the nerves, oh the nerves. I'm not sure about you but personally I get nervous quite easily, and that can affect everything. But what I find that might be useful for those awkward first encounters offline, just go back to elementary/primary school and pass notes. It could also cause laughing fits which is a great ice breaker.

Rule 3: The most important rule. Now I consider this to be the most important rule because it applies not only to the transitions of relationships but to every aspect of life. Well maybe not everyone. But it applies to a reasonable amount of situations. This rule is as follows "Be nice, and don't he an ass". (This is actually a variation of Wheaton's Law, which is "Don't he a dick".) I know this might seem like common sense but it can be the earliest rule to break and forget. But it's simple schoolyard logic if you're not nice people don't like you. And easily enough if you're an ass, then you suck.

Post Script: I'm not sure if I will end up writing a series on rules that I think up about life and stuff but I do like the idea of doing it.

It's not mother's day but whatever

When growing up under normal circumstances we tend to think of our parents as superheroes but as we grown up we sometimes forget that fact and start thinking of our parents as if they are just normal people. Then something happens that makes you think, "My mom's a BAMF" and makes you think that you were right when you were a kid.

So can you guess what happened to me earlier this week. I mean I've always known that my mom was awesome, but this made other people know.

So my mom and her boyfriend were out in the forests of northern vancouver island, they were grouse hunting. And suddenly my mom says "cat". Thinking that she meant cougar her boyfriend turned around pointing his rifle in that direction. But my mom saw a ratty little light furred creature which looked like it could have been a house cat. And so what does my mom do, creep slowly towards the animal so as not to spook it. Of course with her boyfriend following behind her rifle at the ready just in case it turned out to be a cougar cub. Once they got close enough to see it a little clearer they saw that it was not a cat at all but a small little dog. And then they had decided to try and call the dog to them. But it was only an act in futility, but luckily it didn't scare the dog off. So at that point they split up my mom going around to behind the dog while her boyfriend tried to keep its attention. Now she wasn't able to catch it coming up from behind it but what she did was that she guide-chased it so that her boyfriend could finally catch it, and while guiding it she noticed a tattered cardboard box with a rock weighing it down from the inside. Giving them evidence that it had been abandoned and not just run away. So now holding the puppy that notice that it was covered in fleas so bad that it had chewed off patches of fur, making some parts of the small dog almost literally skin then bone. So almost more than half starved, covered in fleas, and with patchy fur not to mention the abandoned wet dog smell covering it they rushed to his truck and then as fast as they could they went to the veterinary hospital where only one month ago me and my mom had taken our old cat to sadly be put out of his pain. But they didn't just leave the dog there so that the vet could take care of it, no they took it in for a full check up, deworming, and defleaing. Finding out that she was a pom/chi mix, unfixed 9-12 months old and the only thing wrong with her was that she was almost starved my mom had her boyfriend drive her and the puppy now named grouse the wonder dog home. Where us already having one dog we had dog food.

And so we now have a new addition to our furry family. A rotty/lab cross named Princess Leia, a tabby cat named Tabi, now a pom/chi named Grouse the wonder dog. And enough love for them all.

Post Script: Grouse is actually not the first of our unintentionally obtained pets. Tabi was born on my mom's bed while looking after a friends cat because she couldn't have pets in her new apartment. Tabi's siblings actually went to our friends too not the mother cats owners friends.

End of Summer

So with the end of August having just happened, I thought I'd share some summer camp stories, or as I've come to think of them, MountainView Memories. To clarify, the summer camp that I attended most of my summer camp career and where all my camp stories come from is called Camp Mountainview. A camp run by the Salvation Army located in Northern B.C. between the towns of Houston and Smithers.

And so I will tell you of Corey my first camp friend, the brass alarm clock, and the midday shower. I will also share with you photos of my friends and time there.

Before I start I should clarify something, Camp Mountainview has more than just summertime camps, throughout the year there are a few weekend long camps which I also attended. Actually my first time at what I will now refer to as CMV (Camp Mountainview) was during one of those weekend camps. That was when I met Corey, as I mentioned above he was my first camp friend. He was very charismatic, but other than for that reason you wouldn't normally assume that he was a pastor's kid, or at least he didn't fit into one of the stereotypes attributed to being a pastor's kid (but then again that's not odd, seldom have I met one who does). Corey was a player, and he knew how the game worked, now I can't tell you if he still plays or if he has now become a one woman man. Okay, so from time to time he'd need help covering or manipulating the truth so he wouldn't get caught, and that's where I'd come in. I was known to be quite honest or at least more honest than Corey when it came to certain things. So some of the girls he would get involved with would talk to me, confide in me, and ask me about Corey, I would stretch the truth and did this for two reasons.

1. Even though the girls were my friends as well Corey was my friend before they were, and the length of time that someone had been my friend meant something to me.

2. At my core I've always felt like I am a story teller, because telling stories has come easy to me, and even though there is usually a string of truth running through most stories (like the one I'm telling bending subtle facts are easy and simple to do).

So I thought I was helping and I would do what I could to help because that's what friends do. But looking back I regret helping him cheat, but I don't think I'd do it any differently because me and him probably wouldn't have become so friendly, even if we now don't talk.

Okay, so now, the brass alarm clock. This might sound like a joke but this story start like this. This one time at band camp, well okay it was "creative arts" camp technically, but that's because at that time there was very little interest from campers in brass instruments. There were only two of us there for that reason on that year, me a trombone player and this guy named Luke a trumpet player. (A little thing that I should mention is that the last night of camp was once known as prank night, where campers could pull pranks on the other campers or staff on staff. These pranks had to be done before everyone else wakes up, they had to be essentially harmless and it usually ended up being boys versus girls. For example, the female CIT's one year put an aluminum canoe at the top of the stairs blocking the door to the chore boy's cabin; they then knocked on the windows to get the boys attention, but also to taunt them. In retaliation the chore boys were far less creative and the next week they flew one bra belonging to each CIT from the flag pole. Another time the girls cabin spread honey on the door handles and door step and then covered the honey in puffed wheat cereal. And this is what I consider retaliation for that.) How Luke wasn't there for the above stated incident but I was, and it wasn't hard to convince him to help me with my prank because who isn't up for a little summer camp mischief. So what we did was borrowed the alarm clock from one of our counselors and set it to go off at 4:45 am, (enough time for us to wake up, get dressed and outside for 5 am, 2.5 hours before we'd normally be getting up) we grabbed our instruments walked to the outside of the girls cabin, and we made noise with them, because to say we played them would be wrong. We blew into our instruments with the purpose of being loud enough to wake the girls up so much that they couldn't get back to sleep, but that was not the result. We ended up waking up the whole camp and though Luke and I were amused everyone else seemed a bit grumpy until after breakfast and some a bit longer than that.

Now to the midday shower, this happened at the teen camp week on my second to last summer that I attended which would have made me around 16 I believe, maybe 15. It was an early August day, it was around 3 in the afternoon we had just come back from swimming in a local lake and we had free time until dinner. A group of us had just dropped off our towels and started walking down to see if we could find some fresh wild strawberries and then the rain started "the way you fall asleep, first slowly then all at once" to paraphrase John Green. It wasn't a cool rain, but it was a nice warm summer rain. But it wasn't a light rain either but a heavy rain, which gave the group of us an idea; one of us I cannot remember whom but they ran quickly to their cabin and then brought back with them a bottle of shampoo. So we were out there not caring about our clothes getting wet and we were washing our hair with shampoo and a warm heavy rain shower and not long after we had finished washing our hair the rain had stopped, as if it rained just so we could wash the lake out of our hair.

Post Script: Did you ever go to summer camp? If so what are your favourite memories?

Also it this means anything, it was not romantic at all and it didn't mean anything to either of us and it wasn't even all that big of a deal, but that camp was where I touched my first boob.

Above: Me
Left:Corey