I blame Dan Savage for my nightmare. Which is proxy for my guilt for being nosy and/or voyeuristic. No, no stalking or hidden camera. I read his books. What were you thinking?

If having a childhood of subtle gay transitions to the gay-now-gay-everything rite of passage for the newly out, then reading advice/sex columns is their lazy aftermath. Back when a twenty for a book to fufill a minor's idea of smut was pricey. Because it cut into the stolen allowance for nachos, garlic bread or glamorized candy (real juice!).

I had bought and read Skipping Towards Gomorrah ages ago. Again, a cover of exploring the follies of America with a spike of irony, all to get at the juicy unadulterated world promised me. All I had to do was say three words when I was an adult and the magical party bus came to fly me away to 70s-era San Francisco, sans STDs and men I would have to shave the backs of to find. Everything else was okay in my book. "Maybe" less vagina. It was this secret little fantasy that made me fear getting anything completely and out right, obviously gay that I couldn't hide on my bookshelf that still is in my father's room. He still sleeps with his head a foot from the National Geographics and his feet a kick's distance from my shameful collection of anthologies other gay-themed litertature in plain sight. Just my luck he never did read much.

But that's a more recent development. Somehow I could stomach hiding art history-esque literature about Tom of Finland, but not the horrors of Savage's adoption or commitment event memoirs. None of that heinously conservative institution or unabashedly upfront material about making a family.

So I avoided it all. Just like my lame excuse to Ryan that I didn't read modern fiction anymore because it was boring and equally depressing. Half truths. The expense, the time I had been told I had wasted on Saturdays, by my sister wandering shelves for books I'd be finished before Monday. My reading habit just never matured in the fictional realm, or to be honest in the non-fiction area either. I don't blame the smut because I chose it, but like most things I have done, I have done backwards. Accomplish first, fail later. Read and write and pontificate and review only to become apathetic and predisposed to a quick fix in my young adulthood. I couldn't stand the references to Foucault or Proust or reinterpretation of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates or their contemporary playwrights. Jung and Freud and the rest.

Suddenly reading wasn't about a good story but a giant scavenger hunt of intellect, ala Amazing Race. Where you got it or you didn't. Then there was the garbage fluff that lined groceries, corner and drug stores, and--worst of all--bookstores, that would end up costing some poor second-hand bookstore owner a handful of change. Never leaving the shelf except to be shoved back in with it's other ill-conceived adopted family. Delicate balance to keep the fluff balanced with thought. (Like these entries. Where was I? Family. Adoption. Gay. Books.)

The point of this was the pets and children. (Threw you for a loop didn't I?) It occurred to me when Viv brought home the second dog, I was outraged. Same with the second through fourth betta fish that I was not consulted about. The first dog and fish had the tones of non-cohabitating parenthood as we had agreed that they would stay under her care unlesssomething happened. The fifth fish is in her office so it's like we sent him to boarding school or the local prison/asylum.

I digress (which seem to happen alot today). New pets with my sister has to be a miniature version of what it's like for people to unexpectedly become parents. No warning, no labour, no awkward phone message for child support. Just "shit, again?!" Because I didn't agree to be held hostage and certainly had even less of a hand in producing/adopting any of these de facto children. Yet I'm expected to take care of them because in a moment of blind, fantastically idealistic fantasy I gave verbal agreement to stick with her through thick and thin, especially in the highly unlikely situation (so I thought) that we would ever have pets.

So this long and cold Victoria Day weekend, she ups and goes off to Lethbridge. No doubt who she's going to see, despite knowing that her expectations of him have always fallen short. A failing on both their parts to adequately work out what happens when they aren't living together anymore. "Be careful, and I don't just mean driving. Don't do something you're going to regret." I don't know if I was trying to throw a barb in or to keep her safe from anymore of her lofty expectations.

The worst part is Mom tells me I'm in charge of the ...pets, almost slipped there. Usually she lets me know firsthand where she's going and what happens to the furry ones. I sort of have to mentally prepare myself for dealing with sleeping with the second one who has a compulsive habit of eating poo. Every day, all day, even the middle of the night. Then licks your face after coughing up the undigested string and carpet she can't swallow the second time. It would be easier if she wasn't cute.

Now it's hypocritical of me. I've asked for things the night of, rides I neglected to ask for ahead of time. But I did ask. Since no one else is willing to do the aforementioned graphic scenario it was assumed I had to do it. All in a bed that you only need to stretch to make little balls of white and grey fur to appear at each fingertip, palm and limb. Mine were one-shots I'm-unemployed-can't-drive-or-afford-a-taxi-and-expected-to-drink-tonight. I get here-are-the-kids-I'm-gone-to-see-their-"uncle"-cum-past/future-father. Disturbingly I really do feel like the interim rebound. God, I'm bitter.

The even more scary thing was halfway through The Commitment I fell asleep. Powers of suggestion help me. I was in the upstairs washroom bent over the bathtub. Showerhead in hand. I wasn't washing the pets, that was never my job. This was distinctly less hairy. Towel it off and carry it over to my sister's room. Suddenly it looks up at me and it's a goddamn kid. Ugly-cute phase and a definate bruised eyelid. I was waiting for him to explain the stick-shaped mark for which I got some murmur about a fall down the stairs and a tetherball.

Was I babysitting? Was he a friend's? All I know is that he didn't want to tell me, and I wanted or needed to know. And time to make dessert was probably out of the question.

Keith