JK Brady's Open Salon Blog

How Far Would You Go For An EP? Munchausen's by Blogger

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:03:34 -0500

LOS ANGELES – In what may be the first ever cyber case of Munchausen’s by Blogger, a local blogger has been arrested for causing unnecessary harm to several of her family members and pets. (Munchausen's by Blogger is a newly discovered strain of Munchausen's by Proxy, a disorder in which a person deliberately causes injury or illness to another person, often his or her child, to gain attention.) In the year since a blogger posting on the popular Open Salon followed in the footsteps of Julie of Julie and Julia fame, her family has befallen a mysterious variety of illnesses and accidents.

At first, the occurrences of accidents and illness in the blogger’s home seemed unrelated, but a careful investigation revealed a darker side to the story. The blogger, using the avatar name IAMSURLY, it seems would go to almost any length in her relentless quest for an Editor’s Pick and a Cover. To that end, her dogs, her husband, her extended family, and even International friends were put at significant risk.

In her early days on the blog site, her dogs were her main target when she tried to feed them a variety of household items in the hopes of a woeful, pity fest of a “my pet is sick” post. She went so far as to boldly post a list of the items which included spatulas, 3 ring binders and something called a leather Filofax in a desperate attempt for ratings and comments. Her attempt at humor proved to be as weak as her dogs proved to be strong. Labratards are very hearty animals and also survived her attempts to feed them fake Christmas trees and drown them in a child sized pool in the backyard. When these cheap ploys failed to fell the sturdy pooches, she upped her game.

Even though she alluded to a crime spree from her high school days in her post The Ghosts of Boyfriends Past, her real motives would not be fully revealed until many months later when the true nature of her deviant behavior would become fully apparent. Not coincidently, her activity increased dramatically as she became a surefire hit with the Open Salon editors who awarded her numerous EPs each week – much to the consternation of her lesser talented blog mates.

Early in her quest for attention on the blog site, the Surly blogger tried offering blow jobs to readers in exchange for ratings and comments. When that post failed to bring her the sustained attention she longed for, she stooped to doggie porn with, Bruno Stop Blowing Your Brother. Apparently, she actually does not know bounds, and her Labratards do not have the ratings pull of cute cats and horny birds.

She dropped further clues to her evil nature in her post The Language of Death where she showed her propensity for all things death by listing 61 terms that mean to kill someone, many of which were cake related, as in “blow out someone’s candles.” Her increasing number of cake related posts later in her career would prove an eerie premonition of her intentions towards another more famous blogger named Freaky Troll. But even with posts titled It’s Not Necrophilia If You Don’t Dig Them Up she continued to fool her readers and the watchful eye of the FTCA (Freaky Troll cake alert).

A savvy Internet user, the Surly blogger realized that death and illness are an almost guaranteed way to get the attention of Open Salon editors. A quick glance at the daily cover of Open Salon clearly demonstrates that. So, with a garage sale find of a file card box full of 3x4 inch recipe cards from the seventies, IAMSURLY charted new ground in the blogosphere. When her tongue-in-cheek nod to ugly food photography and seventies era recipes proved a hit with the Editors, she quickly realized that she could put her foodie posts to other more dastardly uses. Thus, she began actually making the recipes that she posted and using the results to poison her closest family members.

Interestingly enough, it wasn’t her latest, and most hideous, foodie post that tipped off investigators. The truth was discovered when she hit a new low by doing a foody post on Dave's crusty wiener. Even that was too much for the iron gut investigators apparently. It would however take several months of detective work to pull the entire case together.

Fortunately, during the time it took to bring the case together, no innocents were seriously injured, although she did try to take her crime spree global with a trip to Canada that risked the lives of two other Open Salon bloggers and entire ski resort full of B-list glitterati. This was not her first attack on Hollywood, and no one would say whether her repeated attacks on these elite B listers further played into her undoing.

Apparently, it never dawned on Ms. Surly to simply make shit up like everyone else on Open Salon.

Poor Jack. Fortunately, he just wasn't the ratings pull she was looking for and she dropped him off somewhere near the Mexican border earlier this year. But he returned.

She may have offed the entire family with one meal if Dave hadn't been so greedy about his crusty wiener.

It the clip above, you can see as she enlists her unsuspecting husband, and resident cutie, in her attempt to drown her dogs through exhaustion in another failed ratings grab.

For the love of God, stop throwing the toys back in the water and let the poor beasts rest!!

Postscript: The next obvious question is one of accountability. What about the complicity of Open Salon editors in putting the lives of innocent family, friends and pets of desperate bloggers at risk with their cover choices?

IAmSurly being taken away in cuffs and living up to her moniker.

Celebrating the Olympics in Style - Frozen Champagne Sorbet

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:02:38 -0500

As a proud citizen of the host country and a past resident of Vancouver, I triple toe looped at the chance to help Salon.com find an appropriate frozen dessert with which to celebrate the Olympics. I know a little about winter sports and skiing at Whistler and even more about celebrating appropriately.

I realize that many (too many) in the world do not quite understand the lure of winter sports. We in the north have adapted over the centuries to make the best of it. I mean when you live in a country with 10 months of snow and 2 months of poor sledding, you learn to find new ways to make the most of a chilly situation.

It takes a special kind of person to strap on a pair of boards and hurtle down a steep snowy hill or assume the mantle of Christ to traverse a frozen pond on a pair of shaky blades. I am that person. Of course, I do not do it with Olympic talent, but, like the running shoe company and the disgraced golfer advise, I just do it.

I started skiing Whistler Mountain at the age of 12. Back then, the village consisted of liquor store, a general store and a gas station. The only bar was The Ski Boot and there was one restaurant, The Keg, tucked off the highway somewhere. The Sea-to-Sky highway was as picturesque as it is today, but far more treacherous.

In the eighties, sleepy Whistler was transformed into the two mountain mega resort you see on the Olympic coverage now. But even with all that change, the runs at Whistler remain largely the same, so I watch the events with a little insider knowledge of the terrain.

Take the run where they are holding the Downhill and Super G races for example, Franz. I’ve skied Franz; I’ve trembled on Franz; I’ve crashed on Franz, and I’ve almost messed my ski pants going too fast on Franz. One year, when Whistler hosted a World Cup downhill event, I ventured over to Franz after the crowds had moved on and the gates had been dismantled. I was curious. I pointed my skies down the rock hard, icy slope where only hours before athletes had sped down at breakneck speeds, and challenged myself to let go. It was TERRIFYING, and I barely made it past the first turn before I put the brakes on.

So with this personal experience, I can truly attest that ANYONE who makes it to the bottom alive deserves to celebrate. And let’s face it; nothing says gold medal celebration better than a chilly glass of champers. The extra added bonus of winter sports is that there is always a nearby snow bank where you can keep the golden elixir cold.

Please lift your flute to the brave athletes of the 2010 Olympics and to Frozen Champagne Sorbet.

The recipe I found actually calls for a 200 ml bottle of champagne… To wit I say pfft. Get yourself a full-sized bottle of your favourite and do not waste the opportunity to quaff some bubbly while cooking. Are we celebrating or just kitchen slaves?

Ingredients:

1/4 cup sugar
1 cup water
200 ml bottle dry Champagne or sparkling wine
2 egg whites
¼ cup sugar (extra)

Method
Step 1:

Dissolve 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 cup of water in the saucepan over medium to low heat. Remove from heat and cool.

Transfer the cooled sugar water into a freezer friendly shallow container (approximate dimension of 3” tall x 8” x 8”) and gently add the Champagne. Freeze until firm. This should take about one to two hours.

Once the sugar water and Champagne mixture is firm it is time to start Step 2.

Step 2:

In a deep glass bowl beat the egg whites until firm. Beat in the extra sugar until it is dissolved into the egg whites and it forms soft peaks. (The use of beaten egg whites is important as they prevent the formation of large ice crystals. Using a fork, break the frozen Champagne mixture up slightly.

With a spatula, fold the meringue into the Champagne mixture to form the sorbet. Return the sorbet to the freezer.

Step 3:

Freeze the sorbet until firm. To prevent the freezing sorbet from forming a solid block, stir occasionally with a fork.

To serve, flake the sorbet with a fork and gently spoon into champagne flutes. Garnish with fresh fruit or chocolate shavings.

Next grab your favourite latex clad skier and celebrate a day of winter sports from the deck of your chalet.

Childhood DNA (updated with bonus video)

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:02:35 -0500

I am often amazed that I have so little memory of my childhood, or should I say the voices of my childhood. While I marvel at other people’s ability to recall entire conversations with family and friends, I remember nary a word I spoke or that was spoken to me before the age of eight. Sometimes it’s like I never existed at all, yet here I am almost fully formed.

So, I assume that childhood is like DNA. Even though I can’t see the individual gene strands that make my eyes brown or my hair straight, every reflected image confirms that to be true. So what of my childhood? What absorbed the auditory detail and rendered it a solid mass? I do remember bits, not so much vignettes as snippets of my life back in the day.

I recall, for instance, coming home from lunch one warm day and sitting at the picnic table, my feet not touching the ground, and eating a grilled cheese sandwich and Campbell’s tomato soup while my mother sat across from me. We didn’t have a school lunch program, so I’m not sure why my older siblings are missing from this image. And was my mother gazing at me with motherly love enjoying a carefully staged home scene, or was she tapping her foot rushing me to finish? Did she ask me about my day, and did I ramble on excitedly about making crepe paper flowers and reading the latest story in our first grade reader? These details are lost to me, but not the image of mother and daughter sitting at a wooden picnic table stained cedar red, like the nearby fence; the table halfway down the yard and the shade of the nearby apple tree barely teasing the edge of the scene. This snapshot is in my DNA.

And walking to school; I remember the uneven dirt path along Ninth Line and the kids walking sometimes bunched together and sometimes in a straggled line of broken colours. I remember the various styles of houses all so different from ours and passing the entrance to the church parking lot. I remember the houses of kids I knew and those of strangers; I remember brick houses in every colour and just a few wooden houses. I remember the little white and black clapboard house next to the school and how I always wondered who lived there. I remember the line of giant maple trees that dropped blankets of coloured, crisp leaves on the ground every fall, and I remember pressing the brightest of these between pieces of waxed paper. These colours are in my DNA.

I remember the day I heard a “beep beep” behind me and dutifully stepped off the path right into the bike that was racing along. It was one of the twins; the school bullies. I remember my hand jammed in the spokes of the front wheel and embedded gravel bits and mom soaking it in a warm salt water bath all evening. I remember tears. This pain is in my DNA.

And I remember the first time I went to the store alone. I remember everything about the two men who watched me enter and exit the store and then chased me through the parking lot; them in their car and me on my sister’s bike. I remember outsmarting them by heading for the pedestrian bridge and casually telling my mother about it when I got home. I remember her saying, "oh, it was probably your imagination dear." I didn’t believe it to be a real memory until recently when I asked her about it. This fear is embedded in my DNA.

I remember the smell of the school hallways, the piles of pink sawdust they mopped around to trap the dust and slop up the inevitable puke that happened a couple of times a year. I remember the chalk dust from cleaning the erasers and the polished linoleum gymnasium floor. I remember the day the new addition to the church erupted in a giant black plume of smoke and we stood in the schoolyard to watch, until we were rushed inside for our own safety. I remember the fresh spring grass in the yard and the piles of ploughed snow that quickly became kid covered sliding hills. I remember the smell of wet woolen mittens arranged like soldiers on steaming hot radiators. These scents are in my DNA.

I remember the wide flight of stairs to the bathrooms in the one room schoolhouse that housed the kindergarten class after the new wing was added. I remember the little-person sized toilets and sinks that didn’t feel at all small and the tall windows that seemed enormous in that century old building. Mom made me a craft smock to protect my clothes, not a hand-me-down, and I remember the square wooden cubby holes where we stored our smocks along with our indoor shoes and nap blankets. I remember the girl who snored during nap time. And I remember the hallway lined with snowsuits and winter boots.

I remember finger painting the first time and trying not to get paint on my beautiful smock as I stood at the tiny easel that was the perfect size for me. I remember the way the paint felt squishing through my finger tips, and my teacher walking by, but I don’t recall what she said. I remember purple and red and yellow and the inevitable brown that resulted after too many finger passes. These experiences are in my DNA.

I remember ice skating at Janet’s house three doors away. But I don’t remember that our next door neighbours always had an outdoor rink, yet there is film of me skating there. Maybe I remember skating on Janet’s because it was our own private snow palace – no boys allowed. When we skated at night, her father would put on the big light, and the fresh snow against a black sky would sparkle like a million diamonds, and we would skate until our toes froze solid and then come inside for hot chocolate. And I remember the year our own backyard froze over and I could skate around our perfect-for-climbing apple tree. This ice and snow is in my DNA.

I remember when Scott moved in across from Janet, and Janet and I fought all summer over who was his better friend. I remember him building deluxe palaces out of Lego for my Barbies and a maze in the sandbox for our hamsters. I remember putting our two hamsters in the maze, covering it and waiting for what seemed like forever for them to emerge…first his at full speed and then mine in hot pursuit. I remember his little sister Leslie peeing on my best mustard coloured dress when I let her sit on my lap on the swings. And I remember the year he turned a pile of snow at the end of his driveway into a real igloo that we played in for the entire season. These engineering feats and bladder failures are in my DNA.

I remember summer nights so hot that long after we went to bed, Mom and Dad would rouse us from our fitful sleeps and drag us out to the pool. Dad would shine the giant flashlight on the pool, and we’d quietly slip in and under the water. And I remember the way the light reflected on the bottom of the pool as I navigated the depths like a fish seeking shelter. I remember the towel wrapped walk back to the house and the moment when Mom would flick the cotton sheet high in the air and let it float gently over me landing like a silent white cloud. I remember wet hair on my feather pillow. But, I never remember being carried in from the car after an evening out, but I remember the security of drifting off with a tummy full of grandma’s treats while the car wended its way to the highway. These memories are part of my DNA.

So maybe memories are all the more evocative without sound. When I watch our old home movies, I recognize the faces and places, but I’m blissfully deaf to the conversation and the clatter. Perhaps our less technical generation had the edge over this Facebook generation who will have every flurry and fart recorded in surround sound, full colour glory forever. I wonder what will make up their childhood DNA.

UPDATE:

bbd, my one YouTube fan insisted I add this current video of me skating on my pond filmed Monday. I guess skating is part of my childhood DNA too.

The Best Revenge - Closing The Book of John

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 11:02:00 -0500

You would think after the first disastrous deceitful Christmas with John, the pathological liar that I described in my last post, I would have been done with him, but that was not to be. It would take me a few more years of on again off again crap before I finally made a clean break, at least physically. It would take many more years to expunge the stench of him from my life completely.

Even through John’s most egregious episodes of deception, I never seemed to be quite able to kill off the relationship for good. Part of the reason was his pathology. He had no conscience for what he did. So no matter how hurt or angry I was, he bounced back like one of those punching bag clowns. The other part of the problem as I saw it was the distance between us. So with my degree finally in hand, I packed up what few things I had and left all my friends and family in Toronto to live with him in Vancouver in a final attempt to make it or break it for good.

When Princess Diana gave birth to her second son, the British press began referring to Princes William and Harry as the heir and the spare. Later in life, I adopted the phrase to describe John’s relationship methodology. As I was to learn the hard way, you were in one of two positions. If you knew about the other woman, you were the spare, the pinch hitter, the backfill. Of course you didn’t know that as what you were told of the other one was that the relationship was over for the most part. You were in the envious position of being the “one” he really wanted and feeling sorry for the other woman who was obviously deluded and slow to get the point.

Debbie, the long suffering first heir, finally left him for good after that Christmas debacle, and without realizing it, I’d graduated to the position of heir. While I was living in Toronto and he in Vancouver, he professed his love and commitment to me on an almost daily basis. He also paid to fly me to accompany him on vacations south or to visit him in Vancouver to further prove his commitment. As the heir, I was unaware of other women. I still had a smidgen of trust and an ounce of self-respect in me.

The very first day I arrived in my new home city, we stopped at seaside patio at Kitsilano Beach. It was the latest hotspot, and as I wrote of John previously, he was entirely predictable in his habits. Frequenting the latest must-be-seen hotspot was a well engrained habit.

I was bagged from the long flight, so when the waitress brought a single long stemmed rose to John along with our first round of drinks; I was completely unprepared to react. She pointed back to a table with two women, one of who was smiling at John. I should have grabbed the rose and returned it to her myself, but I was too stunned and he was too quick. John hurried over to the table and returned the rose bending over to have a short conversation with her. It was Carol…one of two Carols he’d been involved with while I was in school I would later learn. Now I was on the other side of the games. To me, he dismissed her as a crazy woman he’d only knew slightly.

During that summer spent living in his house, there were other signs. Some are seared in my memory, and some have been thankfully lost over time.

Shortly after I’d moved in, John and I went to bed one normal weekday evening. After a kiss goodnight, it was off to dreamland for both of us until I awoke at around 2:AM. As I reached over for him, all I found was an empty expanse of bed. Sleepy and confused, I stumbled around the house to find that it too was empty. I quickly dressed and went outside; his MG, normally parked on the street out front was gone.

::gut punch::

I grabbed a sweater and sat bundled up on the big wooden front steps, hidden from the street by the tall hedge that surrounded the property, and I waited. And I stewed. I’d been down this path too many times before. I waited for an hour or more. Soon I heard the unmistakable sound of his sports car making its way along Beach Dr. I watched him park it through the opening in the hedge. He didn’t see me when he first stepped into the yard. And then he did. He’d been doing it long enough that he was pretty quick to whip up a story. I stayed silent as he rapidly fired off a line of bullshit.

“What are you dooooing here (first: feign concern)? … ah ah ah, I couldn’t sleep, so I went for a drive (offer excuse/lie number one)… and I needed to get gas for tomorrow (layer on excuse/lie number two for good measure)… blah blah blah (keep talking to appear casual).”

I knew the routine well. I went back to bed without saying anything.

The rest of the summer spent with John in that house was not a good situation. I was distancing myself, but he was hanging on to our relationship for dear life, even though there was another, or others, out there in the night somewhere. It was a surreal sense of being and yet not being in a relationship. He needed to keep me in my place, and I needed to get the hell out before I ended up like Debbie. But without a job, I was completely dependent on John.

I remember distinctly when Giselle joined his law firm. She was married, but she also sported a true Nordic beauty and long blond hair. Years earlier, I’d cut my own long hair that John loved so much out of spite. Giselle was also sweet and smart. I knew all this because John went on and on singing her praises. I met her at a company baseball game along with her husband—also a lawyer. By this time I was already planning my exit, but his over the top admiration of her stuck with me for many years and rightly so.

It took me until September to land a good job. With my first paycheck, I put a security deposit on an apartment in a funky South Miami style building in the west end of Vancouver that was walking distance to my office. And, when John went on a business trip the first weekend of October, I quietly moved out even though I had nothing in the way of furniture. I found a used couch for $80 in the building. Retrieved the futon and frame I’d left with my brother on a previous failed attempt to migrate to Vancouver and bought a used Ikea table and two red folding chairs from a coworker. My days of being cared for were over, and it turned out freedom is pretty cheap when you are prepared to give up everything.

John tried to win me back, but it didn’t have the same effect now that we were in the same town. He couldn’t pretend everything was okay, because I was right there saying “no more.” Within a year, I moved in with my new boyfriend. I chose him because he was safe. I knew I could trust him not to lie, but it would be seven or eight years before I admitted I never loved him. I was making choices that kept me safe from the kind of hurt John had inflicted on me.

John continued to be friendly with the hopes of winning me back, but I stayed strong. I really thought I was free until one day, almost four years after I gained my freedom; I was cut off while driving. I instantly went into a rage…at John! I finally realized that all those feelings of hurt and deception were just under the surface. They were pressing heavily on me in ways I didn't realize to create a person that I didn’t really want to be—one full of anger and mistrust. It was at this point that I cut off all contact with John completely and found a therapist. Lucky for me, she wasn’t a traditional therapist; she combined classic Gestalt therapies with her knowledge of chakras and Buddhism and started me on a lifelong path of discovery and learning.

In the six months I worked with her, she taught me much. But the hardest lesson for me to grasp was the lesson of forgiveness.

“You need to forgive John to get beyond this.”

“No fucking way!”

“You don’t have to forgive him to his face, just in your heart. We’ve discussed this, and you realize that he was not intentionally trying to hurt you. His actions are about him and his issues, not you. By hanging on, you are hurting yourself more than you are hurting him.”

“No fucking way! I will never forgive that fucker fuck.”

The anger I’d discovered that day in the car was still controlling my life, and if I didn’t do something about it, it would consume me completely.

Eventually, I found what I needed to forgive him—never to his face, just in my heart. And in one fell swoop, like magic, a couple of tons of weight had been lifted off my shoulders and my life. I was finally free of John –at least emotionally. It would take me many more years to free myself of the safe relationship and bad habits I’d wrapped myself in for protection. Thanks to the path my therapist put me on, I took up tai chi and meditation, learned to love and respect myself, and twelve years ago was smart enough to know a good thing when I met my future husband.

Living well is the best revenge

John carried on as usual, and even found a way to take his pathology with women to new heights. We shared enough friends and his life with women was such a slow motion train wreck that I was often on the receiving end of the “guess what he did now” conversation. I didn’t mind because with each screw up, his friends, many who thought I was the crazy one initially, realized his true nature. Plus it was entertaining, like rubber necking at a car crash, and a good reminder for me about why I left.

What followed could be a novel in itself. In the short version, Giselle, who I suspected was John’s next target early on, slid right into the role of heir, but only after John wooed her away from her husband by inviting her to work on his cases and flying her all over the world to meet clients. And when John started teaching at a local university, he quickly snagged Heather, a gorgeous redhead, to take up the position of spare. John convinced Giselle to move to another law firm, for the sake of the relationship, and found a position for Heather in his firm as soon as she graduated.

It seemed that Giselle was as willingly blind as Heather was tenacious, and after ten years of juggling two simultaneous live-in relations, it would all blow up when Heather appeared on the doorstep of the house Giselle and John shared. Giselle was at home alone enjoying maternity leave with her newborn baby and still expectantly hoping to convince John to finally marry her. Heather was an obvious six months pregnant. It just gets uglier from there, but thanks to the gift of children, those two women will never break free of that man.

The last time I saw him, shortly after the baby fiasco, he lamented that I'd gotten even.

"How do you figure that?" I enquired.

"Just look at you; you look amazing."

It seems that by leaving as I did, I secured the coveted position of being "the one who got away." And that it turns out is the ultimate win. So thank you John for giving me the gift of forgiveness and have a nice life.

~~~~~~

On Valentine's Day 2000, the Scotsman proposed to me while we were vacationing on the idyllic island of Bequia in the Grenadine Islands. We were married in our garden the following year.

Happy Valentine's Day Sweetie.

Me and my girls laughing it up on the day. (One of these women also briefly dated John)

I Love You. Please Come. John

Fri, 5 Feb 2010 12:02:55 -0500

I went down to my storage locker in the basement yesterday in search of my old Brownie badges (thank you surly). I knew that somewhere buried under old skis and folding chairs and fans was a box full of boxes full of things I’d long forgotten. I wasn’t prepared to really deal with all the junk. I just wanted that little cigar box with my Brownie badges. In a weird twist of fate, it made me think of a long ago OS writing challenge from Wayne Gallant, may he rest in peace. He challenged us to write the back story to Hemmingway’s six word story “For Sale Baby Shoes Never Worn.” The box in my locker was the scene in my post.

As locker rooms go, mine is not at all bad for a 60 year old building. But it was in desperate need of a good cleaning and I was in no mood for that. So after a bit of dismantling, I grabbed the cigar box along with a few other small boxes of things and a pile of letters and pictures, and I stuffed everything else back in the locker.

Soon, I was sitting on my living room floor sorting through the detritus of my life. My old things have a distinct smell. I won’t be so dramatic to call it the smell of failure, but it is distinct. So there I sat, cross-legged and curious and flipping through ancient relics inhaling my own history. And then I came across the tattered envelope.

I didn’t recognize it immediately, and then instantly, I did. My stomach twisted and my extremities turned cold. I recognized the hurried (or was it careless) script and the address as my parent’s house. I had the contents, a single piece of paper, unfolded in my hand before I knew better than to open it.

“Janie, I love you. Please come. John”

Six words, not including my name; the punctuation was implied. It fit, like Hemmingway’s exercise, it fit. Those six words and all the events that preceded and followed the arrival of that letter forever changed who I was and the trajectory of my life.

The letter arrived early January one year. What year, I can’t exactly remember. The timeline of events has jumbled over time. But it was the January that followed the Christmas I planned to spend two weeks in Vancouver with John. It was going to be great; we’d be skiing at Whistler and decorating a tree together for the first time and he’d love the sweater I’d spent 3 months lovingly knitting for him.

We’d patched things up after the previous disastrous summer when I went to live with him in Vancouver. The living together lasted 2 weeks before he lied, and he spent the rest of the summer trying to get me to forgive him. Eventually I did forgive him, but only just before I returned to school in the east.

When I met him, I have to say I was a trusting soul—young, impressionable and swinging through life without a net. Lies and the liars who tell them leave an indelible mark on a life. Pathological liars do all that much better, so the effects are deeper and more insidious. By proxy, they teach others to become super sleuths, to doubt everything, to trust no one. I was only half way through my training.

I was exhausted when I got off the plane that evening after just finishing a grueling week of back to back exams. So I was not impressed and just a little pissed when he insisted we drive to the cabin at Whistler that night. It was a two hour drive along a dangerous mountain road that became deadly at night.

I can’t remember all the details, and I can’t remember if we even skied. But we did fight for two days. I remember that. It started with a long blond hair on his sweater—just like his ex-girlfriend’s hair—the one he’d lied about the summer before. But no, he threw his best friend under the train for that one, claiming it came off his ski jacket despite the fact that Judy, Steven’s girlfriend, had short dark hair and was a friend of both of ours. That was a swell start to the holiday.

After two days of relentless fighting, we agreed it was over while heading down the mountain for his house. I remember crying a good portion of the way and him stopping to make phone calls; this being the days before email and cell phones. After one call, he announced that his house was flooded. Suddenly he had a tenant renting the basement. His tenant had a name, but I didn’t recall ever hearing of that during the last four months of nightly phone calls.

“We can’t go back to the house.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a mess. I don’t know what I’ll find when I get there.”

“Well, I can help.”

“No, I won’t let you. It’s going to be awful. I’ll drop you at Trudy’s.”

I recall getting to Trudy’s later in the evening, so I’ve lost track of time or forgotten something. Trudy wasn’t pleased, but she pulled down the Murphy bed for herself and gave John and I her bedroom. Then John left. “Don’t wait up.” I hardly knew Trudy, and we spent an awkward night together until I finally went to bed. Were her sheets purple? I recall purple.

John came back around three or four in the morning. Later that morning, I had the all clear to go to the house. But when I got there, I was not permitted to go into the basement. And where was the mysterious tenant? Henry, he called him Henry. These snippets I recall.

The crisis, such as it was, served to repair our relationship. But suddenly there was an issue with his parents. No sooner had we arrived at the house than he announced his parents were dying. Well, not that minute apparently, but his brother who lived in Europe had rented a place outside of Ottawa for a family Christmas while they still could. A family Christmas??? He rarely talked to either of his brothers, he'd disowned his sister, his parents had been divorced for decades, and he referred to his dad as the Colonel - and not in a nice way.

Within hours of arriving at the house, he had me booked on a flight home to Toronto. I was three days into my two week visit. But I recall being okay with it. I gave him his present and made him promise not to open it before Christmas. I asked him why he didn’t fly with me to Toronto on his way to Ottawa. He told me he was taking a direct flight later that afternoon. He also advised me that the place his brother rented probably didn’t have a phone so not to expect a call from him on Christmas Day. And I was okay with this. After two days of fighting, I was relieved for some reason.

I recall sitting on the stairs. He was telling me how much he loved me with his hands on my knees. I looked him straight in the eye and asked the question.

“Are you going to spend Christmas with Debbie’s family in Invermere (like he’d done for the last ten years)?”

He looked me straight in the eye as he denied it and told me again he loved me. We left for the airport shortly thereafter. That part of the journey, and the flight are a blur. What next rivets my brain is the image of my mother waiting for me on the other side. I was happy. He loved me; I’d swallowed his lies and convinced myself it was all okay. Then I saw her face through the glass. With one look, I knew I’d been had.

When I arrived home, I called his house. He should not have been there, but he was.

“I thought you were taking an early afternoon flight, why are you there?”

“Oh, I’m taking a later flight; couldn’t get on. Thanks for the sweater.”

“You promised not to open it until Christmas.”

“The box wouldn’t fit in my suitcase. I’ll wear it on the plane.”

I was only partway through my training, but I had already learned a few things about sleuthing. The short time I lived in the house the previous summer, I’d found a big box full of his ex-girlfriends letters and stuff. I’d read many of them. It was my conclusion that she was a little unhinged. It would be years before I understood what pushes a woman to that level of self-doubt.

The feeling you get when snooping is unmistakable. It’s gut wrenching and nerve wracking. It is very similar to the feeling you get when you realize you are being lied to, but it has the extra element of intrigue and danger. It makes your blood run cold, your breath shorten and your hands shake. You become hyper aware of how things are placed and in what order. Your hearing peaks and you are prepared to put everything back at the sound of a car door slamming or keys in the lock. You are torn between confirming your worst suspicions and finding out they were groundless. Once confirmed, the floor drops away and you free fall while you re-adjust your reality. I came to know this feeling well.

When I got off the phone with him, I started calling the airlines. Something didn’t ring true. Fortunately, there were only three cross-country airlines in Canada at the time. One by one, they confirmed what I already knew – there were no direct flights from Vancouver to Ottawa. All of them went through Toronto.

I wasn’t supposed to be home, and I was embarrassed to tell my friends I was back, so I slunk around the house feeling sorry for myself and wondering. On Christmas Eve, my parents asked me if I wanted to join them on their annual tour of friends and family. NO. Travelling around with my parents on Christmas Eve like a spinster loser was not how I wanted to remember this Christmas. I told Dad of my doubts.

“I think John’s spending Christmas with his ex-girlfriend and her family in Invermere.”

“So call and find out.”

::thud::

That my parents didn’t like this man who was tearing me apart was a given, but they’d never say that. This was Dad’s not so subtle way of dealing with it.

By the time the door closed behind them, I was on the phone to directory assistance. Invermere is a small town. If they were listed, I had the number. Soon I was squirming with that same feeling I got snooping through his house. Did I have the courage to pull this off? Was I sneaky enough to do it well?

“Hello.”

“Hello, is John there please.”

::pause::

“Pardon?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I might have the wrong number. I’m looking for John _____.”

::pause::

“Hold on.”

::gut punch::

“Yeah...”

“I want the sweater back.”

::click::

I can’t imagine what sort of turmoil was left in the wake of that phone call. Not so much that he didn’t call me back in a few minutes and proclaim his love for me. It was just lie after lie after lie. There was nothing to discuss. There was no excuse big enough to cover him this time. Once again, my sleuthing paid off – unfortunately.

He must have called fifty times over the next couple of weeks. Each time I refused the call. Finally a mutual friend called me on his behalf.

"Janie, you have to talk to him.”

“Why? He’s a lying snake.”

“Well, he’s sorry, and he’s devastated and he’s a total mess. Just talk to him at least.”

Stupidly, I did. I opened the door a crack and the snake slowly slithered back into my life. He begged me to accompany him on a trip to New York to visit friends. He’d pick me up in Toronto. I refused repeatedly. That’s when he sent letter. I don’t recall if it was the letter that worked finally, but it probably was. It was just pathetic and sappy enough to twist my will.

The trip to New York was no picnic. It was a repeat of our time at Whistler. We fought constantly, but we didn’t break up this time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Turn About is Fair Play

Pathological liars should by definition not be creatures of habit. But it seems they are, or at least this one was/ is. I knew exactly where and when to find him because that was his pattern. So it should have been no surprise what happened next. When we returned to Toronto, there was no way John was welcome in my parent’s house. So we stayed at his favourite hotel on the waterfront—The Harbour Castle Hilton. It was where he always stayed when in Toronto.

We’d smoothed out the rifts, and it was our last night together before he flew home. After a week of dining out in New York we chose to stay in. Dinner had just arrived, and the movie we ordered was queued to start when the phone rang. John was in the bathroom, and to this day, I’ll never know why he didn’t grab the phone in there.

“Hello”

“Is John there?”

::thud::

For his ex (not really ever an ex) girlfriend, that was the last straw. She broke all ties for good after ten years of bullshit. I was younger and more determined (read stupid) and it would take me another couple of years to reach the same conclusion. The total gutting and renovation of my psyche wasn’t complete yet. I still had a smidgen of trust and an ounce of self-respect in me.