On the Birds and the Bees...

This has always been an awkward subject for me, sex. I hate discussing it with other people, I even feel guilty thinking about it. I can't watch much porn, I can't handle videos or pictures of people having sex and the whole act itself scares the hell out of me. I'm not sure if its my mom's radical feminism, sexual assault attempts, maybe even my sexuality. But logically, none of that had any effect on my sexuality, so I'm not sure why it should effect my wantings to have sex either.
I talked to Lance about this, who, like a typical teenage boy, thought I was crazy. After he stopped taunting me and pretending to "turn me on", he said that I should talk to a psyciatrist, maybe and that he'd wait as long as I had to.
Am I insane or something or is this random insecurity?

...

What a strange and wondrous weekend we had.
It was like magical fairy happy land...But the fairies were Lance and I and the happy was drunk. :)
WE did our gig at the Wynter, as usual, and Eric left early to go see his girlfriend, as usual, and Ellen came to see us as usual, and Allen chickened out on seeing her as usual and snuck away in utter (no pun intended, Mute Boy) silence. That left me and Lance, and we sat in the dusty back of the bar with our non-legitimate drinks (considering our ages) and we discussed my birthday plans. I figured all would go well as long as no one died,but apparently by happy, Lance meant something better than that. :p
We talked about the "birds and the bees" but decided to wait on that for a while. No details necessary...it was a little awkward anyway.
I think we settled on video gaming, and some freaky hallowe'en stuff.
See? Nothing interesing ever happens.
-JV

EDIT: Wow...I forgot,but Lori and Ian are got engaged. I know they like eachother and all,but they're the Kings of on and off relationships.We have a bet running. We're so cruel :).

http://lmaitland.blogspot.com -- Lance got himself a blog too...in case you didn't see his reply to my last rant. He's like me, but happy and dumb. Enjoy, monkies.

omg

Lance and I were having a small arguement today at lunch.
See, I've been wanting to tell people (and bugging him about this for a while) that we're going out. Our friends and bandmates don't know, and I thought that they should: they're our BEST friends. On my side of the arguement, I pointed out, "We're not telling the whole school or anything, just the people we trust!"
On HIS side of the arguement, "What if they don't take it well? We've never discussed anything remotely like this with them!"

So finally, today, I was hoping to put it to rest. I approached him, where he was sitting with his head on the table, buried in his arms, and I sat down and said, "You win. We don't have to tell anyone."
He looked up at me and frowned (he had marker ALL over his face! This is how you know he slept in Math) and said, "I'm an asshole, aren't I?"
"Yeah," I said, "but we all are." (A JOKE!)
And then he jumped up on the table and yelled, "Hey everyone!" (I was mortified, I nearly dived under the table) "I'm gay! I love Johnny and if you don't like it, go fuck a pig!" Then he plopped down beside me and gave me a kiss on the mouth.

So we both win. I guess. I can't write when there's dialogue, I apoligise for the shit-tacular way this was done. :p
-JV

<3

I Complain...

A few months ago (I'll give it May? June?) I was mugged in an alleyway near the place I was doing my gig at. I had just left, left Lance standing in anger/confusion, finished my yelling and willed to never see him again. I was embarrased. He had said "Do you still love me?" and I thought he was teasing. So I left, I stomped off the other way with thoughts of violence and maybe suicide in my head when I stepped into a dark alleyway to have a break, to pull out a smoke. I heard a rustle,and shrugged it off. It was late, it was probably a homeless guy or a raccoon nearby. Of course I was wrong. I heard more muffled voices, and suddenly the sharpest, worst pain I could ever imagine in my side. MY shirt was sticking to my ribs with something, and I felt like screaming, but I couldn't. A gloved hand came up and waved in front of my eyes and I heard, "Nah, he's still awake." and then I blacked out. My last few thoughts were that I was going to die, and I didn't seem that sad about it. I was just mad that it hurt so bad.
I woke up in a few weeks, with beeping and white noise all around me, and it turned out a couple of guys who SHOULD be in prison, had stabbed me, and that my right lung was punctured by a rib that had broken when the guy had stabbed me.

So my REAL complaint here is that I am tired, out of beer, out of smokes, I have a headache and I can't breathe right. Even worse, I didn't see the guy who did it, but he knew my name. O_o

Enough bitching, sorry :P
-Johnny V

7 Things Post...

...because I was backed into the "Corner of Kindness". ^_^

7 Things I plan to do before I die:

- Eat 100 peeps. Yeah, I know, but shut up. It's always been a dream of mine.
- Display my art somewhere other than the School's Pity Art Show.
- Get married, adopt kids, maybe. (Married to a boy, we're allowed to do that up here.)
- Kill the guy who invented the "Goldfish" Jingle.
- Watch the Police Academy Movies, all 5+.
- Go to college, get a degree in something and rub it in some jerks face that I'm smarter. ;)
- Own a small, european country. I'll name it after Lance's dog, Angelus. <3

(Remember kids, aim low. Aim REAL low.)

7 Things I can do:
- Throw a brownie at a kid standing over 25 meters away. (boo-yah!) (It actually hit him, too. Right in the back of the head. :D)
- Beat Final Fantasy 7 in less than 24 hours.
- Go out for Hallowe'en and get treated like a kid, 'cause of my height.
- Make an adult cry.
- Photograph things well...Errrrr...I'm running out.
- Hold my breathe for almost 5 minutes.
- Acrobatically drop a box-cutter so that it somehow cut my shoelace in half. (It makes me so proud.)

7 Things I cannot do:

- Kill a man with my bare hands.
- Police work. I can never get into that :p
- Take care of a goldfish.
- Stay interested in anything for more than 20 minutes.
- Suicide. This cares me shitless. :p
- Break up with someone I like.
- Run for too long (my right lungs still healing :p)

7 Things that attract me to people:

- Curvature... Something about how their waist feels when they lie down, when you're running your hand over it. (*is not crazy, I swear)
- Hip bones. I find these sexy, for some reason. Don't ask why.
- Eyes. This is once I get to know a person. Lance has a shade of green in his eyes that I've never ever seen anywhere else. It's beautiful.
- Personality. This is a definite one. And this counts people who have opinions about things, have some sort of cause for something.
- Humor. No sense of humor, no second date. IT scares me to think that there are some people who are just born without a personality.
- Clothing. This doesn't sway my opinion of a person, but I do like the certain eclectic look on some people. A lot of peopls's personality is obvious by the way they dress.
- Confidence. I love a man/woman with confidence. Someone who isn't afraid to stand up for something, or to just yell out something for no reason.

7 Things I say most often: (Cover your virgin ears!)

- "Oh no God, oh fuck no." - This is an age-old tradition in my house when things go wrong: When I've dropped something, failed something, broken something, forgotten something, blown something or hurt someone. In the occasional instance, I've even said it after I've heard something bad, not the thing that the person who told me wants ot hear after they said their mom died, but nonetheless, the Man-of-No-Tact previals.
- "Don't make me come back there." At first a joke, now a threat.
- "If you don't stop [something annoying], I'll [creative, violent,statement] - This is self-explanitory.
- "Shoo." My substitute for the word "shit". I don't know why. Errr...
- "I'm sorry." I apoligise a lot to people I like/don't know.
- "Screw Bush. Screw the whole damn country!" I don't mean it. I love America, just not American gov't. I'm an angry political guy.
- "[random french creative swear]". I dunno...Picked this up from my mum.

7 Celibrity Crushes- (teehee)

- Keith Hamilton Cobb (yum yum)
- Johnny Depp (derr....)
- Gakuto Camui (*hot*)
- Alicia Keyes (^_^)
- Matt Damon
- Marilyn Munroe
- I can't think of any more. :(
And also, my images won't stay put where they're supposed to.

--
As you can tell, I lead a boring life. Go back to sleep, children. :p
- Johnny V.

Autumn

When the leaves start to fall, thats when my overall mood improves. When my sarcastic sighs and angry scowls actually lighten up a bit, and instead of punching someone, I will dismiss them with a "Screw you" and the middle finger. These are the golden times, people. When instead of whipping a cupcake at someone, I'll give it to Lance in exchange for apple sauce (a very autumn-y food) and whip that at someone instead.
My birthday approaches, and the ground is covered in brightly coloured death--my time to shine. The happiest time of the year, what with Turkey Day and Hallowe'en and Devil's Night (my b-day incidentially) and now the month in which I finally got my Lance holding my hand in public.
Autumn begins the process of death, which turns into the cycle towards life, and I think there's something oddly beautiful about it.

My mother and I would walk in the leaves, and kick them around, and be complained at because we refused to rake our lawn. The way the air smells, like fireplaces and how its cold, but not too cold, or cold enough to make you angry and bitchy all the time. Even when I was a kid, and Lance would shove leaves down my shirt and run like a girl the other way, that was beautiful too. (Well, it would be, if he stopped doing it, even now). I like how quickly the day falls to night, and the photos you can get of urban October are simply fantastic. Last night, we perched on top of the roof together and didn't say a word all night. It was so nice.
Anyway, on to business, enough stupid poetry talk: We've decided to go out for Hallowe'en again this year, cause I can still pull it off. (Hurray malnutrition!!) I'm thinking about being a pirate. :S. Anyway, we all decided on seperate costumes for the party Eric is throwing (damn rich kids). Lance is going out as Sam, the guy from Clockwork Orange, Allen's being a knight for his Princess, Ellin, and Eric is going as some guy from the Fight Club. I debate, what should I be? :p

Enough ranting,
Johnny V.

Trivial but Important

Why? Why curse a child with a name so long he had to learn the alphabet in kindergarten just to sign his damn papers? Eh? Why name a child something so difficult that it takes him till grade 3 to say it right?
Oh, I've heard the excuses: "So you can have ANY nickname you want!"
"It's a gift, use it well!"
"It makes you unique." This from "Yoshka." Blerg.

I've also been beginning to doub that my first name is a REAL name. :p Here we are folks *cry*:
Jhohannen Nikolai Stalinusha St. Raphael (my patron saint, thank you) Valentine.
And my dad thinks my name is Joseph.
What do parents think of when they name their kids? What goes into it, and why some of those strange travesties of a name?
Sorry for the rant, :p
Johnny

P.S And that, kids, is why they call me "J". :D

????

Lance and I were sitting on the roof of his house, I had a cigarette, he had a Diet Coke and it was nearly midnight, and raining. I felt anxious: neither of us had spoken in like, 15 minutes.
Finally, he turned to me, kissed me, and said "My dad beats me. What should I do?" and I dropped my umbrella to the ground. We kinda watched it sail to the concrete below and then it fell silent.
I didn't know what to say, until he put his hand on top of my hand and leaned on my wet shoulder, and even then, I only said "Oh."

What am I supposed to say? I want to help him, but he refuses to tell his mother. ("She has a weak heart!" "She'd be crushed!" "It's not that bad, I guess." "Forget it, I think I'll be fine.") He's diabetic, his bruises are purple and the man broke his hand just last week ("I was playing hockey." "I fell down the stairs. Stupid, huh?"). And I didn't even know before! I thought he was a klutz because he's always been a klutz! He never told me his father was a vehement homophobe, or that all of his broken bones and bruises and (once) stab wounds were from his dad! Is this my fault for not paying attention? Or should he tell his mom? What if she gets hurt?

We got down from the roof and went into his bedroom, to sit on the couch. He took of his wet shirt and sat beside me, with his arms crossed. I told him, "Someone's gotta know." but I didn't really think thats what I meant. I put a hand on his shoulder and told him not to go back to see his dad. (He commutes from Toronto to Hamilton).
Was that right? There has to be a better way! I hate watching him get hurt, and I hate it when he never asks for help., but I'm happy that he trusts me enough. I don't want to break that trust, but I think I need to tell his mom.

Help?
Johnny

Thinking about....

There are days when I just can't concentrate and I think today was one of those days. I find my mind wandering off into the sky, or wandering off to my art or photography or of course wandering off to the place that all teenage boys minds wander off too: someones pants. ;)
I was doing a photoshoot today with Starshine, and she admitted to me that she had liked me for some time when we were younger, and I was fairly startled. I lowered my camera, and she stopped posing for me, and I asked her "why?", baffled. I could tell she was nervous, grinning and staring at the ground with embarrased eyes, but she said "there was an air about you. I could feel the way you feel all the time. I felt...connected." and I suppose I knew what she meant. She's a psychic, and her powers to sense aura are phenominal. She tucked her hair back behind her ear and it occured to me, rather suddenly and guiltily, the reason why she had never told me before: she was my shoulder to lean on. I had been complaining about Lance and Gloria and every boy or girl I had ever liked to her and she didn't want to embarras herself. I felt so bad. So bad, in fact, I had to call off the photoshoot and go sit by myself out in the school yard.
I tried to talk about it with Lance, but he got irrittated and started asking me seperate questions, and now I feel so bad. She hadn't dated for years, was it because she liked me and was waiting for something to happen? She's a beautiful, smart, tree-hugger of a person, and I refuse to believe that no one asked her out in that period of time. What am I supposed to think?
Eh??
--Johnny

P.S Lance is cute. <3

My Mom

When I was small, and growing up with my mom, she always taught me that violence was wrong, and being not only the only parental influence in my life, but my best friend, I of course believed her and hung onto every word she said. She was a very radiant woman, with powerful beliefs and she was very anti-war, anti-bias, anti-corporation, and I grew up in her image, even physically. I've been told that I look almost exactly like her (even feminine :p), because of our similair black hair and blue eyes, and I like to sing and paint--just like her.
This is no coincidence, and I know that. I was vaguely interested in painting as a kid, but never music, even though I was lullaby-ed on Death in June, and Bauhuas. I sat front row in every one of her small, scarcely populated conerts, when she sang her heart out and played the guitar and blew kisses into the audience. Being a young mother, I suppose she still wanted to be a twenty year-old, but I felt that I may have kept her back from a lot of her oppurtunities.
She taught me about God...not Catholicism, Lutheran, Baptists...just God,and how he loved all of us, no matter what race, religion, sexual orientation or gender. She said it was okay that some of us didn't believe, because their Gods (if any) love them, no matter what. She was very religious, and thus, so was I.
The last night I spent with her, we were sitting on her bed, and we were talking about going to babushka and dedushka's for Christmas, but spending Christmas Eve at our small house in Toronto. I was excited, 13, waiting for Christmas Eve and my mom's birthday (It was her 28th, incidentally the same day). I painted her a portrait of herself, based upon a photo of her and the Wynter (her band), and I was really excited with the outcome.
She finished reading me Le Petit Prince (Saint-Exupery), and we fell asleep talking about New Years Eve.
The next day she sent me to Conner's (mom's drummer) and I stayed there until about 6 PM. When I got home, I came to a scene that never left my head. Ever.
There were police cars and an ambulance outside, two guys carrying out a stretcher and a body-bag. It was dark outside, and lights flashes a constantly. MY mind was totally crystal clear the whole time. I don't know why, but I couldn't think and Conner kept snapping his fingers in front of my eyes, and asking policemen what was going on.
My mom had a stalker. They'd known eachother for years, in fact.
They took me to the police station before I could even fathom what was going on and it took almost an hour for the head policeman to tell me that my mother was dead; that she'd been stabbed to death in her bedroom. I couldn't even cry. I said "oh." and asked to go home. I was totally in shock, it didn't follow through.
It wasn't until nearly midnight, when I was lying in bed at Conners, smelling the marijuanna from the next room when it occured to me: My mother is dead. Those phone calls she got: it had been the killer. It was her birthday, it was Christmas Eve, it was a Monday and it was our day alone together.
Lance came over the next day, with a stuffed animal for me. His eyes were all streaky (he'd been wearing eyeliner) and he started hugging me and he didn't let go. I stayed at his house until the funeral, and even at the funeral, I stood in the freezing rain, with no umbrella, no tears, and only Lance's hand to grip while I shook in anger.
Despite all the evidence, even, they dropped the case as a suicide.

Even with this, I forgot my mom's talks about violence. When I got angry, instead of supressing it, expressing myself creatively, I began to hit things, break stuff and hurt people. It never occured to me that this wasn't what she would have wanted. It was all about God had taken what I had loved, and I'd do anything to make people feel the same way. That was my New Years Resolution: To stop giving a damn about God, to stop making an effort to like people, and to rant, and rave, and fight for whatever it is I wanted, even if people got hurt. If they were in my way, I figured they were expendable.
I was expelled a few times, sometimes for things I didn't do, but mostly because of my violence, my explicit language, my broad social statements. I never felt compelled to anything good from then on, I just dug myself deeper and deeper into the hole.
I was to go live with my father, a lawyer, a man who lived in a 2 million dollar house and a man I had never met before in my life. A man who had another family, and never even asked for a picture of me to put in his wallet. The man who abandoned my mother in favor of a woman he had met at their "wedding".
I refused, and lived on the streets for a year and a half, until he finally forced me to, by law.

My main point is that I was wrong. About everything. I took it out the wrong way, and I ended up eating twice a week, getting kicked out of school, landing in a coma, countless suicide attempts, psycho-analysis, falling into a deep depression and getting assaulted by strangers. Maybe worst case scenerio, but anyway: it's mine. Whatever it was my mother had said about violence, I had gone against that: destroyed her memory and it feels like shit to admit it, but it's true. I screwed up my life based on this and I wish I could tell her I was worry, but of course, I can't.

To be conclusive, it feels good: to write things down, to know the worst is behind you, to feel that everything will be better soon. Even with loss, and confusion, and deep self-loathing there is always someone out there to help you. I wrote this partly for me, but partly for a friend: someone who screwed up, and fell on their ass, and will recover (hopefully) soon.

<3>