Up Too Late: An Endless Search for Mr.Right & Other Important Things in Life

A girl I was dancing with came up behind me and put her arms around me - I stopped dancing and sat down. She was worried and apologized, as we'd had had a discussion about my problem of demonstrating affection in public - As a private person, I'm bothered by it, no matter who it is, unless it's a family matter of hugging.

She said "I'm sorry" 20 times, and I kept asking her not to apologize, but just to remember not to do it again...

On top of that, some guy I met from South Africa came five minutes later, asking if I was dating her. I told him that no, if I'd date someone, it'd be someone of my own sex. He seemed surprised, and added that he comes from a conservative university in S. Africa, but that he is happy to be here, to have his views... "opened?" I suggested. "Challenged," he said. I was puzzled whether this guy I considered a friend was in fact conservative. He said he apologized for everything and hugged me, asking me to forgive him for making things awkward tonight.

I've had to forgive people tonight, and I am wondering why I went out in the first place. I feel like staying in, reading, and avoiding people for the rest of the year. I think I may be becoming depressed. I'm listening to the Requiem for a Dream theme song...

Labels: Friday, friends, gay, party, sad, United Kingdom

"Sana Wara Sana" is the title of Nancy Ajram's song [Arabic]. It's a song that I don't particularly like, but one that truly expresses my emotions this morning.

Labels: men problems, sad

I sat next to a genius on Friday, at a recruiting dinner set up by the mother search engine in London. 

Labels: London, men problems, mr.right candidate, sad, United Kingdom

i only come to this blog when I feel a) nostalgic, b) excited, c) angry, or d) sad.

i seem to be feeling (d) right now... Adrien reappeared in my life this week, after a one-year disappearance, and I remembered how big of a crush I have on him. He apparently is afraid of committing to a job because he's afraid he will like it too much, then get stuck with it. This makes me think he's afraid of committment, so I don't ask him out.

I am also afraid that if I ask him out, he'll say no, or if we do something, it won't work out...

So I just watch him and ponder whether or not he feels the same way i do.

There are other things that bother me: 1-he smokes weed, 2-he's a nudist, which makes me think that 3-he's easy, 4-he looks apathetic, and 5-he's not passionate about much.

Maybe it's because of Adrien, maybe because of my next year (I am going to England to do my graduate studies there for two years), but somehow, I feel under the weather tonight.

I have been listening to Natacha Atlas a lot at work. One of my favourite songs is her cover the classic Jacques Brel song "Ne me Quitte Pas." The music is haunting, her voice moving, the combination amazing and rare. Not so sure about "je veux etre ton ombre, l'ombre de ton ombre, l'ombre de ta main, l'ombre de ton chien," but her voice is emotional enough to make me instantly sad that my relationships have never been passionate enough for me to feel the contempt of being left behind...

here's the song:

Labels: arabic music, crush, Egypt, favourite music, gay, men problems, sad, St.John's

I'm in my honours study room, where I am supposedly doing research for my essay...

Instead, I am looking up music online, writing two or three new words every 15 minutes, looking at the blank board in front of me, the empty shelves I've started to fill with books since I got the room last week.

My mind is wandering distances away, to Kosova. I wish I didn't feel so homesick, especially since this is home, and I need not be convinced, I insist, I feel at home in Canada... yet there is always a sort of pain that hits me when I am alone, with too much time on my hands...

I am wearing a t-shirt of Pierre Trudeau, a memento of times gone by, a man who believed in equality...

I wish I could go back to Kosova and realize that life, however imperfect it may be, is perfect in its own little way...Instead, here i am, feeling miserable about not being neither here nor there...

In these moments of self-initiated misery, questions about my future challenging my sense of the present, I am listening to Rona Nishliu, a young musician from Mitrovica, my hometown...

Her song Shko pastro pas saj (Go clean up after her) may not be lyrically relevant, but her voice and tone of music are making me want to curl up, cry my heart out and continue this painful assignment on the evolution of the French language in New France....

Labels: albanian, favourite music, Kosova, Kosovo, sad, St.John's

I was out on a date last night with a guy whom I'd briefly spoken with long, long time ago...

I couldn't believe last night, that I was sitting in a coffee shop with someone who could only remember meeting me by the word "ethnic cleansing" ("you're from that country, with ethnic cleansing stuff, right?")

I ordered hot chocolate, he ordered Canadian [beer]. Soon after, the waitress came back, expecting us to order food, but I opted for a fruit salad instead...Poor Jamie B. from NB ordered a bowl of brownies and ice cream, only because I'd done it.
Coming back from this failure of a date, I became convinced once again that I am single because I am picky - penso, igitur solus sum.

In other news [exceprt from an e-mail to a close friend]:

I'm in the middle of preparing an outline that will contain the summary of my 40-plus page-essay in one single page...I'm not good in summarizing, so this is proving to be a chalenge,....

I gave up 2/3 of my hours at the ANC, so i'm hoping that will help me concentrate more on class, though there are so many things that are keeping my mind away from classwork...

My brother called twice today...He usually does this to politely check if there is a way for one of us to help him by sending him some sort of a remittance. ...As time passes, I only worry more that his arrival in Canada won't happen and that somewhere down the road, someone will change his/her mind about it all and cancel my brother's application...thoughts are roaming in my mind and I know that they shouldn't, but somehow, i can't censor them...Kadare would have laughed and felt wonderful about just having gotten enough material to write a new novel.

I feel like a dying giant who, with the grasp of his final bits of energy, is trying to stand up...I don't know why that analogy is appealing to me, but somehow, I do feel like i've fallen down and am having difficulty standing up...it must be Kadare! I should blame Kadare for everything wrong. :) Hoxha did/some Albanians today do.

I received a call a couple of weeks ago from a man who just moved here from Kingston. He came here from Prishtina in 1999 with his family, did his Master's in Engineering after proving to the university that he had worked in the power facility in Obilic until late 1998. He is now working on the Harbour clean-up project...I have yet to go out and chat with him, but he sounds lonely on the phone. His family is in Kingston, apparently, waiting for summer before they can move here. He, in the meantime, is looking for a used car to buy...I didn't really know where to send him for that....He asked about the other Kosovar family in town...I told him I'd check with them.

A good friend's father passed away Monday...it must be the sadness that his death brought that has affected me. I've been thinking what I'll do if my father dies, and I'm not there during his last minutes...It is sad to know that he will die without us having a chance to talk about the past...any effort of the sort would end in complete failure...It's also sad and slightly ironic that I'm wanting to study diplomacy when I couldn't resolve conflict between my father and the rest of my family...I may be being harsh, but it is something that is and has been part of me for so long.

Labels: date, Friday, Kosova, Kosovo, men, men problems, problems, sad

men are strange creatures.

they like you, love you even, adorn you with gifts and place you on a pedestal, until the end comes.

then, like/love is replaced by apathy, hatred even, and words that were uttered are taken back.

...

regret replaces eagerness and the warmth transforms into a misunderstanding of feelings and an awkward bit of emotion of "i don't know what to say to that".

if i don't understand men, then i don't understand myself. i should, since i think i understand myself perfectly well.

i just don't know why i don't feel the way that men around me feel, particularly when they dislike.


...


a man dropped by my office today, wanting to volunteer. he's in his late seventies, still wanting to do what he can to improve things around him. i saw myself in him, not the improving things part, but the aging part.

...


the day i understand men, i'll be using a walker and will no longer have any plans in the way of my life.

....

i wonder when men will understand me.

Labels: everyday life, men, men problems, sad

Ever since we met, Adam has repeatedly been asking me if I'm okay, partly because he doesn't know how to react to my sighs or strange ellipses while chatting, or just the silence surrounding our conversations sometimes. His concern is that I am too private and hold too many secrets about myself.

While I was in Montreal, Bee was concerned that it was unhealthy for me to hide my sadness/anger and conceal it with a serious, "I'm strong enough" attitude.

During all of May, Giles, one of my good friends, was afraid that I was in a state of depression. He thought it was unusual for me to stay home for so long [two weeks] without going out.

I wondered what was happening to me when I first moved back to St.John's. I was so glad to be home, yet so many unknowns were hovering over my head that I couldn't stabilize and enjoy the savage Newfoundland nature.

The stress of having to find a summer job, the worry of making sure my mom would make it safely to Kosova, my concerns about her health [diabetes, heart disease, high cholesterol], my brother's cochlear implant prospects, the likelihood of cochlear implants helping his hearing and thus his independence [and not dependence on me and my mother], his loneliness in St.John's, my student loan [only four months, but still something bothering me], my other brother's return to a Kosova where 60% of the population is still unemployed, my ever-delayed draft of a non-fiction work, my long "to-do" list, my worries about my post-graduation studies, whether I will do well on the LSAT, whether I'll get a driver's license this year [which I need, if we ever move out of the province], whether my long distance attempt at dating would work, whether I would get voted in for a leadership structure I hoped to join at the end of May...These all added to my frustrations in May and months later, many of them still are in my mind.

As Giles would have said in his pseudo-Freudian theory, I am joining my brother in painting the interior of our home, in hopes of cleaning up my own struggles and worries.

If I started telling those around me about my worries and about my inner feelings, I would only make it more difficult for them. I often feel like I feel worse after going through my worries and concerns with someone than when I don't mention them to anyone.

I grew up witnessing events around me that would have shocked any one of my friends here. I have grown up to live with my worries and deep concerns, to deal with them in my own ways, in exchange for the inquisitive and interrogating looks I would otherwise get.

As I walked with Gina around the Parliament buildings last night, I told her about a Bosnian-Croatian-German film production I had recently seen, a film titled Armin. She was deep in thought and slightly worried about her own priorities and issues, but she didn't talk about them too much and I didn't want to bother her by asking too much. I talked with her about the message of Armin. I mentioned that I was impressed by the film's message about a boy who, 12 years after the Bosnian war, wishes to move on and wants to be seen as a victim of the war no more.

Goethe, the most well-known German writer of all times [along with Schiller, wrote a novel that touched me deeply when I first read it three years ago. The Sorrows of Young Werther is a short novel about the inner struggle between that which we are and that which others, namely the society, would like us to be. It struck a cord in me in a similar way that Thomas Mann's Tonio Kröger did. Mann's novel dealt with a man who went through a lifelong struggle of the main character witnessing events around him and acting as a sponge of emotions being felt around him, only to reflect those in his work, resulting in a man who eventually finds himself in depression, as a result of all the emotion and passion he feels.

To answer Giles's concerns, I have sad days, especially when I sit down and while writing, recall days of my childhood. I am saddened by things that most people wouldn't flinch at, things like sad songs bring me to tears, sad movies make me a wreck. It's part of me.

My hope is in the future, in looking forward to the day when I'll look back at the friends and events, things that gave me hope to accomplish something that there was little likelihood to do. Every day I look back at the past, I see the struggles my family went through and in ways, continues to go through. These struggles shape me, just like the accomplishments I made in the past with the help of my friends.

I have had to deal with inner questions like if I was lacking in self-esteem or self-confidence, only to realize that I have no problems with my self-esteem. In fact, as my next paragraph shows, I just may have too much of it.

Something completely irrelevant to this post but important to me was the realization this afternoon that I never use the word hate. It came under my attention as I read an article on Capital Xtra! about the extent of hate in today's world and how it impacts people.

I'm not depressed, nor am I a secretive person.

I am the way I am for a reason and those who know me well understand those reasons.

I am listening to Malajube - Montreal -40°C.

P.S: This is not a justification of my personality. It's a reaction, an expression of my character that I've yearned to write about for years.

Labels: airport, ottawa, problems, sad

I was writing Adam a brief e-mail tonight, as I have to get up early tomorrow, plus I had no major news to talk to him about, so I was listening to some new songs I had found online a few days ago, on an albanian mp3 website.

Qesar, aside from Miranda B., was on MSN , which I have been desperately avoiding, as I find it eats up hours of my time and frankly, I never have been a huge fan of it. As Qesar tried to get words out of me [i was antisocial tonight...slightly worrisome], I decided I should send him some of the songs I was listening to, among which was my favourite, Eliza Hoxha's Për ata që s'janë [For those who are no more] .

After sending the file to Qesar and hearing his comments on the song, I thought I'd listen again to the song that Hoxha dedicated to the 2100 missing brothers, fathers, husbands from the war of '98-'99. After listening to it, I thought about the families of these individuals [mostly men, few women] from the Kosovo war, and I couldn't help but feel down and deeply sad about the fact that eight years after the war, the families of the missing don't even know how their dear ones were killed.

It may be better that they don't know how their family members were murdered, but deep down, everyone missing a brother, father or a husband will want to know what happened to their dearest, no matter how brutal the reality and the truth may be. It's slightly ironic that I need to listen to a song to remember that five of my cousins are still missing from the war.

Below are the lyrics for Për ata që s'janë in Albanian and English. The song can be downloaded here, courtesy of ShkupiMusic.

Për ata që s'janë, Performed by Eliza Hoxha

Sa letra shkrova
pa adresë ku t'i dergoj
sa shum i kaluam
sa shum malle dhe lot që s'pushojnë,
i gjallë a i vdekur,
asgjë më unë nuk di,
por brenda meje ti,
ende frymon cdo ditë,

Dhe rrëfen një nënë,
rrëfen dhe një grua, një femi,
o, sa shum po lutem,
edhe unë po lutëm tani,
për ata që s'janë,
të humbur diku në pafund,
rrëfen edhe kjo këngë,
pa forcë të bëjë më shum,

Asgjë nuk kërkoj,
ky antkh më leshoj,
jam lodhur në pritje,
por s'mund të heq dorë,
veq vendin ta di,
se ku prehesh ti,
kur dhëmbja nuk do të më pushoj
në fund dhe unë do ndjehëm e lirë,

Asgjë s'ka kuptim,
as kjo pritje qe më shkatërroj,
dhembjën s'e ndalojnë
as këto vargje që i këndoj,
gjithnjë rrëfuzoj të mendoj
se ti më nuk je,
e si unë të besoj,
kur peng i kësaj ndjenje kam mbet.

Te gjitha m'i morre,
nga vetja ime ti
e unë tani pres,
të paktën veq dicka nga ti,
e humbur në jetë
me shpresën se do vish
bashkë me shum të tjerë
unë ende besoj vërtet.
--
Te gjithëve sa shum na mungojnë



[Loose translation...anyone notice a better translation of an expression, please let me know]

For Those Who Are No More

The many letters I wrote,
No address where I could send them,
So much sorrow,
So much sorrow we went through, and the tears that know not of rest,
Alive or dead,
I don’t know anything anymore,
But inside me,
You breathe every day.

And one mother recounts,
And a wife, a child too
Oh, how much I pray,
I pray now, too for those who aren’t,
[those who are] lost somewhere in the abyss,
This song recounts, as well,
No strength in it to do anything.

I seek nothing,
This anxiety left me,
I am tired in waiting,
But I can’t give up,
Only if I’d known your whereabouts,
Where you rest,
When my pain will pause,
In the end I will feel free, too.

Nothing has a meaning,
Not even this waiting that destroyed me,
Not even these verses that I am singing
Can stop the pain,
Still I refuse to think
That you are no more,
And how can I believe [this],
When I am left as a victim of this feeling.

You took everything I had,
From my own self,
And I wait now,
At least for something from you,
Lost in life,
With the hope that you will come,
Along with many others,
I still truly believe
--
We all miss them...so much.

Labels: albanian, eliza hoxha, home, human rights, Kosova, Kosovo, sad

Serbia's Eurovision win is slowly fading into events past and I need to find something else to spend my time doing, aside from browsing my statcounter statistics, which show that in the last three days, I received more than 400 visits from countries around the world, most of them looking for answers to questions like "marija serifovic is she gay" or "marija serifovic gay is ok", etc.

I started decluttering and going through a minor spring clean-up, trying to minimize the number of boxes of things I have in the basement. Among some of the things I came across was a book I had bought two years ago, Dusko Doder's biographical book on Slobodan Milosevic, Milosevic:Portrait of A Tyrant.

The book is an easy read and allows people like me, who've heard all about the man and in many ways, suffered the consequences of Milosevic's decisions, to go into the depths of his family history, the problems of which seem to have been outlined in the stars, as an astrologer seems to think.

I read a chapter of the book and, slightly distracted, wondered what YouTube would have on the Serbian dictator. The results showed a Jon Stewart joke, a Family Guy excerpt featuring Milosevic in a tight circle with Saddam Hussein, and a short clip that made me go back 13 years to a time that I remember very well, perhaps too well, considering that it has been a long time.

In 1992, following possible implications of the Serbian government in the Bosnian war, world powers, including the United States , imposed economic sanctions on Yugoslavia [Serbia and Montenegro at the time]. I remember 1992 to 1995 being the years when everything was scarce, including baking flour. In order to buy groceries, it was regular routine to wait for hours in a line. The inflation rate was so high during the sanctions, that new banknotes (with an extra zero in front) were issued almost every week. You could buy two litres of car gas one day with 100 million dinars, but the next day, you'd be lucky if you got one piece of chewing gum for the same note.

Two YouTube videos I came across show the situation as it was. In one of the videos, you see seniors pushing for free bread, distributed by the state, in Belgrade. Free bread was not distributed in Kosovo, but the fighting went on even when you had to pay for the bread.

In another one of the videos, you see the empty shelves of corner/grocery stores. It brings back a memory of walking into ghost supermarkets. Here they are:

Labels: 1990s, inflation, Kosova, Kosovo, sad, sanctions, Yugoslavia

I greatly resisted the urge I felt for writing some melancholy on my last days in Montreal. I really did. Now that I've had enough time home to reflect back on the last week [and not the last ummm...year], I thought maybe I could have some emotional diarrhea here...

I've been slightly unfair to Montreal in my previous posts when I criticized it for its coldness, the French-English Quebecer divide, the dirty streets, the snotty store clerks in the Village, etc. I still stand by my thoughts, except that somehow, looking back at it, i think i was so used to it the last few months that i rarely noticed the flaws, or just simply chose to ignore them.

Thursday was a regular day. I got up relatively late, had breakfast with Renee, packed the few things left and put the rest in bags to leave for Miranda and her friend. I cleaned up, broke a cup in the process, made sure no dust was in the counters [i even used a disinfectant and EVEN washed the counters...one would say i have OCD]...During the clean-up, Mika's Relax was on repeat....looking back, it was something I played to reassure myself that everything would be ok ["relax, take it easy, for there is nothing that we can do..."].

I called a couple of friends to say goodbye, got my luggage ready and went downstairs to wait for my ride 30 minutes before it was supposed to be there. I took photos of Montrealers on my way to the airport, which is what you see in this post.

I got to the airport, where I had to pay $40 for overweight luggage. I had a bag of peanuts in my backpack [i forgot to remove them], but the security guards didn't check it. I went through easily. I checked my ticket, only to find out i was sitting in the middle of two seats...great. I called mom from the airport and told her I was getting home the day after, so she wouldn't worry and stay up late. I had two hours to kill, so I wandered around for a bit, watched people pass by, read for a bit...and then, at the moment when I couldn't find anything else to do to prevent thinking about it, the feeling of nostalgia I was starting to get for Montreal snuck in.

I suddenly thought of all the things I'd miss: Gossiping with Miranda, chatting with David and filling out sudoku puzzles at the Village Starbucks, hanging out with Princess Tanita and having her homemade Sunday crepes, walking down the Village alone, knowing that I didn't have to hide my sexuality in any sense [even subconsciously], seeing the fiery Montreal sunrise thanks to my early-morning jobs, riding on the subway - the eye-flirt central and many other things.

One thing I will not miss is the attitude that Montrealers and all residents of major metropoles, the attitude of "I come from Montreal [or major city], therefore I am better than anyone else around me". Miranda had tendencies of this and it slightly bugged me at times, when she'd start with her stories on how things are better somewhere else... David had stories like this, too, talking about Toronto and Texas and how they were better than Montreal...the ego is just too...ack. Speaking of this, my mom, too has tendencies of "my god, their clothes are terrible. This country just doesn't know how to use good, sturdy material for clothes".

I have come across all kinds of stereotypes about Newfoundlanders, including a comment from a prof who felt sad I was going to Newfoundland, a place she thought was the center of boredom.She simply couldn't understand why I was leaving Montreal, the amazing center of culture, music, art, anything imaginable.

I came to St.John's and realized that here, too, people have a pride, but it's a different sort of a pride. They don't care what others think or say. They have pride in their city, but it's individual, and quite modest. That's the difference between Montrealers and the residents of St.John's.

I reassure myself by saying that I will be back, but who knows where life will take me...For now, I take comfort in knowing that although I miss Montreal, I don't miss it enough to say that I feel like I will never see it again...

Labels: Montreal, sad

I just booked my ticket to go back to St.John's on May 3rd. It's sort of soon, as I have work until April 30th, but it was the only date I could find that was available free of charge (I used Aeroplan points to get there).

I'll be missing Montreal…In fact, I already do..Though I am a big critic of the street hygiene (dirty streets!) and the people's attitude (slightly cold), I have fallen in love with this town.

Labels: goodbye, Montreal, sad

Hmmm...for four months, i've known Salvador Dali [it's how I like to call him], an exchange student here for a semester. For four months, we've talked about everything except boys...and girls, of course. Which should have triggered my gaydar...

but it didn't.

Today, Salvador Dali decided to come out....on his last week here. He said he kept thinking about it, he wasn't sure, he felt insecure, bla bla bla, the point is, despite the fact that we shared the same roof [along with around 800 other people in the residence], Salvador Dali didn't tell me...and guess what he used as the most logical reason for not telling me: He wasn't sure I was gay...He said sometimes he thought I was, but then, he thought I was European, so it was lost in the europeanness...Then, he said, he wasn't even sure if I was European because he met me at a private residence party and not the "international students' party" and since he is only into foreign men, he didn't want to come after me because maybe I was not "foreign"...

After talking about this, he asked if we could do something this week...I said I'd think about it...

If only I could sleep around with people, this would be perfect. He would leave, I'd never see him again and all would be over. But obvioulsy, I cannot be that simple. I am a complicated gay man, which makes me think of women sometimes. i understand them. All you men who don't, talk to me...

Now all I think about is why this happened... grrrrr. For four months, i wished this macho stereotype was gay and then, here he goes, embraces the rainbow on his last week in town...This is just great.

What else do you have in store for me, Dio? No fair...no fair at all...

P.S: AdamX, I've become addicted to "Ugly Betty"...I hate the title, though and I wish Betty would finally remove those braces... but I LOVE Daniel, especially his hairdo and smile.

P.P.S: I had a rather fun flirt session with a Middle-Eastern guy today...he lives two doors down from where I live... will update if the flirting goes somewhere :)

image credit: psycing

Labels: sad, salvador dali, ugly betty