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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 10 February 2019

Hits: 1263

Finally - a long week of holding shit on Kijiji for people that forget or don't come to pick it up, text messages from people who dicker you down and then text "OMW", then disappear, right now there's about a 1/4 response rate. For every four inquiries I sell one item. But a picker came down, got excited, started going through boxes, made a pile, older - my age - Chinese fellow, putting together a pile for best price - a good offer on already good prices but it's gotta go. I liked him, he counter-offers gently, I get him, he's got to make his profit, I don't want to lose my shirt (but there's no profit to be had here, I win on some, lose on others, and - in the end, it's all gotta go). He's a nice guy, and in a lazier world I could see us becoming friends. He discovers my boxes of Dinosaur bones - "Help Yourself", because, after all, I have hundreds, and you can't sell them, and then he discovers boxes of crystals, which haven't been selling, but he takes a couple and I like that we have similar tastes, he spends an hour with my watches, cufflinks, but he doesn't know these and I can't recommend he sell them for profit, I'll move those off on Ebay for the best price, they cost nothing to ship and like the candlesticks there's a better market further afield. 

I've got people now emailing me wondering when I'm putting more stuff up for sale - that's gotta be a good sign, especially with rent due in 5 days...and - I get discouraged when I think how much I have left - but I have a year, or so, ahead of me, it will all go by then - and then - today and finally, I sell the decrepit bongoes, which were proof manifest that you never know what people will want or buy, and so there's still a lot of hope yet...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 27 January 2019

Hits: 1137

Most people I know, especially in the Kootenays, 75, it's middle aged. I think of my Father - older, sure, but not that old. Or Dagmar, 75 years old, bitching about not having sex for 18 years, her choice, she doesn't really like her partner, smoking a joint behind the restaurant, then tearing off to chain herself to a tree or protest something or another, 75 years young, you'd look at her and guess late 50's, tops, she's still a beauty, with more energy than most women half her age.

So it's a bit of a disappointment when I track down Batshit, 75 years as well, in his squalid apartment in Nelson. It's been a few months, good to see him, but not like this. His apartment filled with junk, boxes, he's sprawled on a tangle of sheets, chip wrappers, food tins, the place is a hole - he's hung a bed-sheet in front of the window, the entire winter he's not gone out, bathed, showered, filthy, unflushed shit in the toilet, watching old movies on the TV beside his bed...

I knew this move to Nelson was a bad idea. He's glad to see me, totters about getting dressed, the place stinks, there's no way to describe it, the mess, and his movements, slow, confused, complaining about every imaginary ache and pain, he's the worst picture of 75 years old you can imagine...

We go for coffee, catch up, he's got some scrolls for me. And he needs cigarettes, and a bag of stone ground coffee, and I order him a sandwich which he nibbles briefly on and then demands a take-out bag for, he'll eat it later, then he wants a bottle of liquor, and a toy in the antique shop window, and he wants some farm fresh eggs and thick sliced bacon and some canvas and it goes on and on and on and it's too much, I can't afford this shortest of visits, get him back to the car, he's complaining, tottering, doesn't want to walk up the hill, I'm pissed, he's become lazy, old, way before his years and I'm not playing this game, don't want to enable this charade of untimely old age...

...a lady watches me in horror as I drag him up the hill, swearing at him all the way - "Elder Abuse" I explain gently as I pass, he's got me annoyed, he's down a little self-pitying well, but I can tell he liked this little foray into downtown, me, not so much, I'll see him maybe again in the spring if he lives but it's become a duty, not a pleasure...

He's been adding the postcards I've been sending into his artwork...which is good...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 16 January 2019

Hits: 1148

It was about time, really, the boy, he's never overreached, but the daughter isn't shy. 

She's been losing - she's won at Scrabble, until I started enforcing the rules - same for me as her, leveled the playing field, as it were, that wasn't a popular call...

Chess, well, I've never been a great player but with the kids I've taken it for granted I could not pay attention, play sloppy and worse, and recover from the worst of plays. 

The daughter's proved otherwise. A few moves in...a few moves, I recognize them after playing them, first a bishop, then a knight, then a queen, all left unguarded, and she's quick to pounce on them. I'm inattentive at best. It's good this, you don't want to beat your kids forever, you want them to be better than you, but still, maybe I have to slow down a bit, pay more attention, up the ante - I don't want to be seen as TOO easy...

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: People

Published: 30 December 2018

Hits: 1120

The children are over, it's great to have them, it's Xmas after all...

No presents this year, sorry kids...

They're used to it. But they're over and of course I've got to feed them, from an ever diminishing stash of groceries, - enough, as it were, to last me a week if I ate lean, now enough to last me until tomorrow morning. And no budget to replace them.

The son, sleeping on the living room floor surrounded by unpacked boxes, the daughter just swinging by to check up, games of Scrabble, Chess, conversation...

The conversation, it only ever goes so far. There is the Great Wall: Between parents and children, I am, I fancy, more liberal than most, more truthful, less bullshit, better advice, we can talk about women, men, drugs, still there is that wall, we each draw it around ourselves, me, you, the places we don't share, we need this, but we isolate ourselves... 

Breakfast for the boy, bacon, eggs, waffles, I've found the old waffle iron in the locker, the apartment fills with childhood smells, we laugh and reminisce about when I'd make chocolate chip waffles for the kids, only, maybe, they weren't chocolate chips, they were little mouse turds from an old roommate of ours...

An old plate, found in the locker, the boys childhood plate, for me, only 10 years ago, for him, half his life:

8-13, his plate, by assignment, he recognizes it, goes through a few brief moments of remembering...

It's not important, this lack of food thing, I've been here so fucking often before, I need to sort through some of these boxes, find some shit to sell, start the big downsizing, how can I have this much crap? Really? And a 1/4 of it isn't mine, it's the kids, their childhoods I'm hanging on to, even if I manage to empty the locker there will still that stuff that needs to be saved, future heirlooms, I am cautious about throwing their stuff away, because - a mobile childhood saw that mine was discarded, and I'd be curious to see some of my old favorite toys.

The boy and I make a trip to the locker, fill the LadyJeep, a few discoveries, I'll share when I unpack, repack, there are more boxes of photos (sorry Breony, not that box but I'm getting closer), the living room now full, maybe 30 boxes, books, knick-knacks, objects of inspiration, art supplies, time now to sort, sell, donate, repack, repeat.