07-17-2005, 12:00 AM
I live alone, as a direct consequence of my interactions with women over the Internet.
For those of you who don't know anything about me, well, can I recap all that in a nutshell?
I was married. I was a 'stay-at-home dad' for all but three years of my marriage, which spanned nearly twenty. And my relationship with my 'wife-to-be' had started almost four years before we were married, and we'd been living as a couple for three of those, prior to our wedding in February of 1982.
I left a well-paying job with a jewelry designer in Toronto in early 1979 to become a street-performer in Victoria, British Columbia. The city life wasn't what I wanted, nor was the nine-to-five routine so many seem to settle for.
At first I was rather shy when I began playing an accordion on the sidewalk on Yates Street in those early months of learning that instrument. I learned by playing it, not by taking any lessons from anybody. And I learned to play it in front of whoever happened to stop and listen, and I guess that takes a certain something, or maybe it's a lack of something. Not that many do what I did, and I was amazed myself that I could do it, and it wasn't long after I'd begun playing the accordion that I began to wonder what else I could do.
I began painting my face white, and wearing a collapsible antique top-hat, which was in remarkably good condition when I bought it from a woman who worked at the Provincial Museum. I had spent every lunch-hour watching a street-magician performing his magic routines and became fascinated with both the illusions he performed, and with the effect his performances had on the audience. I became obsessed with learning magic.
Meanwhile, I began to act as if I were a mime, although I knew next to nothing about that art either. Nevertheless, I drew large crowds, and was able to make a good show of it, if my take for my performances was any indication. It was 1980, and I was making thirty dollars an hour, and this during government cutbacks, recession, and a minimum wage of two dollars and fifty cents. And it was fun! I was having the time of my life.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend (my wife-to-be) had found employment with the government. Already our lives were going in different directions, but even so, we loved one another dearly, and didnt argue or berate one another at all back in those days.
Then I met my benefactor during what I can only describe as an otherly experience.
Ive tried to write about this before, not here at Separate Reality but at all the other Castaneda-oriented groups Ive been party to and also banned from.
And he told me at that first meeting that I must give up the life Id made for myself, and settle down awhile. That isnt exactly what he said, but what it amounted to. He was so very kind, and I trusted him as soon as I heard his voice, and I didnt argue or question his motives, or his advice either.
Then I got married, and my father gave us a downpayment for a house as a wedding gift.
So we moved from Victoria, to Sooke, which is about twenty-five miles away, into a very run-down old house, which is the one I still occupy to this day.
All of a sudden, we were very poor. We lived for a year on money wed made growing psilocybin mushrooms, which had started out very well, and had been a most lucrative activity, albeit illegal, but then my partner got arrested, along with his cohorts all across the country, and my wife and I were just glad that we hadnt been fingered and we stopped our culture work and threw away all our spawn. I bought metal halide lights with the last of our money, and began growing marijuana instead.
But then, we had a child. A son. And my wife began working locally all day at the health food store, and I stayed home and looked after the baby. I told her I wasnt going to get a job, and of course this set us up for a lot of strife which lasted for all the remaining years of our marriage, save those three, when I did actually go out and get contracts as a finishing carpenter. And those years I was miserable, and nothing seemed like it would ever work out the way Id like it to. Well, it never did anyhow, but I gave up that life in 1989, and havent returned to the working mans life since.
For those of you who don't know anything about me, well, can I recap all that in a nutshell?
I was married. I was a 'stay-at-home dad' for all but three years of my marriage, which spanned nearly twenty. And my relationship with my 'wife-to-be' had started almost four years before we were married, and we'd been living as a couple for three of those, prior to our wedding in February of 1982.
I left a well-paying job with a jewelry designer in Toronto in early 1979 to become a street-performer in Victoria, British Columbia. The city life wasn't what I wanted, nor was the nine-to-five routine so many seem to settle for.
At first I was rather shy when I began playing an accordion on the sidewalk on Yates Street in those early months of learning that instrument. I learned by playing it, not by taking any lessons from anybody. And I learned to play it in front of whoever happened to stop and listen, and I guess that takes a certain something, or maybe it's a lack of something. Not that many do what I did, and I was amazed myself that I could do it, and it wasn't long after I'd begun playing the accordion that I began to wonder what else I could do.
I began painting my face white, and wearing a collapsible antique top-hat, which was in remarkably good condition when I bought it from a woman who worked at the Provincial Museum. I had spent every lunch-hour watching a street-magician performing his magic routines and became fascinated with both the illusions he performed, and with the effect his performances had on the audience. I became obsessed with learning magic.
Meanwhile, I began to act as if I were a mime, although I knew next to nothing about that art either. Nevertheless, I drew large crowds, and was able to make a good show of it, if my take for my performances was any indication. It was 1980, and I was making thirty dollars an hour, and this during government cutbacks, recession, and a minimum wage of two dollars and fifty cents. And it was fun! I was having the time of my life.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend (my wife-to-be) had found employment with the government. Already our lives were going in different directions, but even so, we loved one another dearly, and didnt argue or berate one another at all back in those days.
Then I met my benefactor during what I can only describe as an otherly experience.
Ive tried to write about this before, not here at Separate Reality but at all the other Castaneda-oriented groups Ive been party to and also banned from.
And he told me at that first meeting that I must give up the life Id made for myself, and settle down awhile. That isnt exactly what he said, but what it amounted to. He was so very kind, and I trusted him as soon as I heard his voice, and I didnt argue or question his motives, or his advice either.
Then I got married, and my father gave us a downpayment for a house as a wedding gift.
So we moved from Victoria, to Sooke, which is about twenty-five miles away, into a very run-down old house, which is the one I still occupy to this day.
All of a sudden, we were very poor. We lived for a year on money wed made growing psilocybin mushrooms, which had started out very well, and had been a most lucrative activity, albeit illegal, but then my partner got arrested, along with his cohorts all across the country, and my wife and I were just glad that we hadnt been fingered and we stopped our culture work and threw away all our spawn. I bought metal halide lights with the last of our money, and began growing marijuana instead.
But then, we had a child. A son. And my wife began working locally all day at the health food store, and I stayed home and looked after the baby. I told her I wasnt going to get a job, and of course this set us up for a lot of strife which lasted for all the remaining years of our marriage, save those three, when I did actually go out and get contracts as a finishing carpenter. And those years I was miserable, and nothing seemed like it would ever work out the way Id like it to. Well, it never did anyhow, but I gave up that life in 1989, and havent returned to the working mans life since.