Diogenes
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Everything posted by Diogenes
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What a powerful first chapter - very emotional. I like the device of narrating the story as a diary - it gives the sense of being given access to something very private. Looking forward to the rest of the story.
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Thank you. I'm glad that sentiment came through in the story.
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Thanks for the review, Parker - much appreciated.
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Thanks, Tim. I appreciate the comment.
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It was one of those warm early-September days that always make me appreciate the short Canadian summers. I was sitting on a park bench beside the Ettrick River in Kelso drinking a coffee from the Tim Horton's donut shop down the street. A U-Haul truck with most of my worldly possessions was parked across the road. I was on my way to my new house, a rented cottage on the river a few minutes outside of town. My parents were already there; they had driven up to help me move in earlier that morning.
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Thanks for the comments - I'm glad you enjoyed the story.
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When I got back to Toronto after Carl's wedding, an official letter from the Toronto School Board was waiting for me. It tersely informed me that, as a result of shifting enrolment numbers, I had been transferred to a different school in downtown Toronto. This was a common occurrence for young teachers, and I half expected it, but it was not welcome news. After having barely got my feet wet at the previous school in the suburbs, I now had to move to a huge school downtown, one with a whole new s
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Thanks. Growing up near the US border was a unique experience that had a big influence on me, and I suspect on most Canadians. I'm glad that came through in the story.
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Thank you for your kind comments. I'm trying to get chapters up more frequently, but real life keeps intruding. No, "Carl" and I did not end up together, but our situation caused me to eventually make some positive changes in my own life, which I'll explore later in the story. When the creative non-fiction "About Carl" winds up, I'm hoping to write a fictional sequel that imagines a future for us together. I'm still mulling that over. Stay tuned.
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The float plane climbed up and away from the dock and then banked slowly over the spectacular skyline of Vancouver. It was my first trip to the West Coast, and as we flew low over Stanley Park and the Lions Gate Bridge, I watched the rising sun illuminate the city and the water of the harbour. It was a beautiful sight. I had flown in the night before from Toronto and was taking a short trip across the Georgia Strait to Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia, located at the southern tip
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It's in the works - very busy with real life at the moment. Should have it up in early July.
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“Hey man, it's me, Carl.” He didn't need to identify himself; I recognized his voice over the phone immediately. A smile came to my face. “How's it going, Carl?” I said. “How's law school?” “Pretty good. Crazy-busy, though. I've got a ton of assignments due, and I'm swamped with work. But enough about me; how are the teenagers treating you?” It was late April, and I was in the final stretch of my first year of a new job teaching science at a high school in downtown Toronto. The school was big
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Thanks - glad you enjoyed it.
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I was parked on a side street near the entrance gate to the giant auto-parts factory watching the line of tired workers trudging out through the turnstile. Loud sounds from clanking machinery filled the air, and through the big sliding doors, left open to relieve the intense heat, I could see the red glow of enormous furnaces inside. The building, a relic of the early days of the town, looked straight out of Dickens' Hard Times. The enormous, sooty, brick walls crowded up against the street, and
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Thanks - glad you enjoyed it. The story is semi-autobiographical, so it does have a story arc based partly in real events, but I'm planning to take it in a completely fictitious direction at some point based on how I wished it had turned out. We'll see how that works.
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Thank you for your comments. I appreciate the feedback.
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Thanks for your kind comments. It's my first attempt at "creative non-fiction" - a big change from my usual writing.
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“Hey, man – pay attention!” Carl said, his mouth full of half-chewed cheeseburger. “You're going to miss the exit!” Busted. I had been looking at Carl out of the corner of my eye, watching the wind ruffle the hair on his bare legs. I wasn't paying attention to the road signs, and I had failed to slow down for the off-ramp. Carl laughed at my inattention. “Get your head in the game or we're going to wind up in fucking Sudbury.” It was late August and I was driving my dad's enormous Pontiac sta
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I heard that song Goodbye on the car radio yesterday. It was the song I listened to after I saw Carl for the last time. Almost eight years have gone by, and now I don't think about him very often, about how he's moving down a separate path from me, without me. But every now and then a smell or a photograph or a song triggers something in me and the memories come flooding back. Yesterday was cold and grey, a typical January day. It was Friday and I was heading home from school, looking forward
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A man comes out in middle age after dealing with guilt from a decades-long relationship with his married best friend.
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In the fall of 1972 it first began to gel in my mind that I wasn't sexually wired in the conventional way. I was thirteen years old and just starting ninth grade at a small suburban high school in Canada. The proximate cause of my mental unease, the Patient Zero, so to speak, of my emerging sexuality, was Mark Spitz, the American swimmer who was then competing in the Olympic Games in Munich. Spitz won seven gold medals in Munich, then a world record. His image was everywhere: on TV, in the news
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1n 1972 a 13 year old boy develops an obsession with Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz and confronts some uncomfortable truths about himself.
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Wow. Your sex scenes are brilliant - perfectly integrated into the story, never gratuitous, always hot. I first read your Crosscurrent stories on another site and loved them - glad to find you here with new work. I love your dialogue - a nice combination of literary and slang, just like a character with Jeff"s background would use. It flows perfectly like an overheard conversation. I can't wait for chapter 4.
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"Look, Jeff...don't you think it's time we got real and owned up to we don't wanna keep our feet on the brakes?" I loved that line - so much packed into one sentence.
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Loved this story - looking forward to following the rest of it. You have a wonderfully descriptive and natural writing style that makes me feel like I'm a spectator at the scene. The way you write dialogue realistically is like listening in to an actual conversation.
