Emotional indigestion

Coming back to North Bay is always so pyschologically rich. Maybe a little too psychologically rich. Maybe the psychological richness of, say, a deep fried twinkie dipped in chocolate sauce and covered in those little sprinkles the Dutch put on their morning toast. By which I mean it makes me a little sick. Coincidentally, I don't think it's an exagerration to say that this place is why I was fat. Although I do still believe I would have stuck around longer if I'd had a kayak growing up.

There is something just too intimate about the town, how well I know it, and how I've experienced it; something bordering on incestuous. My aunt's house being built over the spot next to my old school where I used to play doctor with boys, walking past complete strangers I might have had some sort of positive or negative (and knowing me, usually negative) relationship with as a child, and worst of all, of course, being forced to think through my relationship with my parents.

I really go through phases of thinking it's terrific and then phases of thinking that if I hadn't left home so young it would have been awful, and blah blah blah . . . Anyways, what baffles me is that I think compared to most parents and kids we have a fantastic relationship, so how the hell to people with a shitty relationship with'em get by? I know, of course, what with my darling mortgage partner and soulmate not being gifted with the easiest of domestic menages as a child, or that is to say, I know as well as anyone can know without experience.

Speaking of the F-word, this trip away from him speaking to people with a special interest in him has thrown me back on the problem of what to call him in relation to me. We're addressed in Australia, where marriage isn't at the top of people's list of priorities and common law is respected, as husband and wife, which is mostly fine with me. I think having a mortgage together is significantly more spiritually, emotionally and practically bonding into spousiness than any recognition a city hall or church could give us. But of course that won't do for all of these fucking Catholics here. And not 100% for me either, what with me not being 100% pro-marriage. So I've started calling him my old man. Still feels a bit rusty but it's catching on in my own head.