Well, here it is, my 39th birthday. That is thirty nine trips around the solar systems on this big beautiful ball of mud we call Earth, and that is a hella of a lot of tickets spent on the exact same corny old carnival ride.

And as I feel the big four zero coming up, and it feels like the sand in my hourglass gets heavier and heavier and more eager to slide down to the bottom and make be disappear by the minute, my darkest thoughts follow me like the shadow of a bird in flight follows it no matter how high or how fast it flies.

Age old issues of worth and value and license to live grow stronger every day, It is a fell and nasty thing indeed to feel ashamed to even be alive, and to have that shame grow larger with every heartbeat until the cold within its shadow penetrates the very bones of your heart, and it becomes harder and harder to remember that you are alive and that somewhere out there, the sun still shines.

So in these dark moments, instead of giving in to the wretched despair that has been my soft and poisonous refuge for so very long, I will try to tell my story a different way this time,

We are our own narratives, after all. As a writer I am more aware of this than most. So here is the first draft of an entirely new story of me.

I was born on May 19, 1973 in Prince Country General Hospital in the safe and sleepy little town of Summerside, Prince Edward Island. I was, by all accounts, a healthy baby, quiet and content. I did not cry as much as other babies. I waited till I had a good reason.

I do not remember the house that received me when my mother brought me home that first time. I barely remember moving in to 135 Belmont Street, the house that would be my home and refuge for the next twenty years and more of my life.

I was a sweet-natured, gentle, sensitive boy with a friendly, outgoing spirit. I loved animals, especially our many cats, books, video games, and Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends. I had parents who nurtured my eager mind, a babysitter who was both tough and gentle enough to handle a precocious and stubborn little redheaded charmer like myself, and older siblings who put up with the constant outflow of questions that my eager little mind produced.

School was never a problem. My bright mind made short work of schoolwork. And sometimes I had friends. There was Kevin and Trevor, who introduced me to KISS and Judas Priest and Metallica, an influence that would persist throughout the rest of my life. I still love the heavy metal. I also used my budding comedy talents to make up dirty lyrics for the songs we sang in music class.

Then there was Philip Oatway and Troy Little, two people who sat with me in homeroom in junior high and who shared my nerdish interest in things like comic books, science fiction television, and Voltron. We shared good conversation, trips to the local Mom and Pop grocery store for gross looking candies with which to menace the girls in our class, and the secret of who it was that fed a Gummi bear into the pencil sharpener to see if it would survive. (It didn’t. Neither did the pencil sharpener.)

Then I started hanging out with Jason Heisler and Michael Coupland, and got into punk rock (DK RULES!), skater punk (a little), Dungeons and Dragons (so long, any chance of not turning out to be a big ol nerd) and even very weakly dabbling in the occult. (Not my idea. I was a skeptic even back then. )

Then I went to college, the University of Prince Edward Island, and found it to be a great place where they had thing thing called philosophy, where they actually valued people who sat around thinking about things. Imagine that!

I also discovered my nerdiest, and hence most wonderful, group of friends ever. Myself, Hal Keller, Michael Dorsey, Chris Smith, Michael Lamoreaux, and a mysterious entity known only as “Bino”, we hung out chatting and playing cards in a library cafeteria call The Pit, and called ourselves the Pit Crew, and braved schoolwork, stress, and the seductive dangers of the Pit Chili together.

We also started hanging out a couple of times a week at each other’s homes, playing oddly ruthless board games for such a jolly group of friends. Even omega males need an outlet for their competitive bloodthirst sometimes, I suppose.

Then, after leaving college, I bummed around my hometown for a while more. Living with your parents as an adult is never very fun, but on the other hand, I was getting really good at Nintendo.

Then an opportunity to follow Internet love to the opposite coast in Portland, Oregon, and like the foolhardy star-chaser I was, I took it. I moved in with two gay guys named Brian, and discovered just was a cool, laid back, and artsy town Portland really is.

It was only after moving there that I came out to my parents. Via email. Not my proudest moment.

When that ended, I moved in with David Ihnen and Dhugal, two great friends who were nice enough to give room and board to a stranded Canadian out of the goodness of their hearts.

Then, after drifting back home to Summerside for a while, lightning struck again,and I followed love all the way to the Silicon Valley in California. And when that ended, who did I end up living with again? Why, David and Dhugal again, plus an awesome guy named Ross Archer, and eventually, a big lovable White German Shepherd named Zane.

And when my time there ended, I drifted up the coast to the Vancouver area, and that is where I have been ever since.

First I lived in a tiny bachelor suite, then I moved into my friend Steve’s almost as tiny apartment with him and kept our cat Tabico (part tabby, part calico) company.

But then Steve moved in with his girlfriend, and I got booted out of there, and ended up living with a way cool guy named Eamon Jones for a while. He worked in the movie biz making bloody special effects for horror movies, and was bemused by his failure to shock me with his art.

After Eamon, I moved in with my friend David and a crazy guy from Quebec. Literally crazy. There is a big difference from “Man, you so crazy!” and “No, seriously, you are literally insane. ” And the first one is a heck of a lot more fun.

Then, after a few more bounces, I moved in with a nutty hoarder with a zillion pets. The place was full of cats and rats and even a couple of house bunnies, and I loved having so many cute fuzzy critters around to love. The atmosphere was rather toxic, though (mostly ammonia) and I was glad to move out of there and into the place where I live now, and have lived for six years or more.

That is with my buddies Julian and Joe, two funky cool gay nerds like me, and we have an apartment jam packed with books, DVDs, and nerdly memorabilia.

That is the story so far, and of course, this story is far from over. Heck, if i am lucky, it is not even half way over.

I wonder what the other half will be like?