#true-stories

[theunionpacific]

And then Atticus and I decided to invite her to forever.

[bad-luck-again]

The Last Summer

It was early August. We flew in to visit her grandparents. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Whitehorse isn’t exactly the first place people think to go on vacation but her grandparents got free airline tickets through some sort of stock options they have owned since 19 something something so I was happy to tag along.

Alice and I had recently celebrated our 7 year anniversary. At 22 this was a huge accomplishment. Over our years together we shared many trips. I traveled with her and her family all sorts of places; Hollywood (twice), Vegas, Seattle, Santa Cruz. Her family we incredible to me and ever since my family moved away, I very much considered them my own. These trips always stuck in my mind as highlights in my life but Whitehorse was something else altogether.

On the way In in the plane I recall looking out over the forests of northern BC and the southern Yukon listening to my chill summer playlist, that’s when I first saw the city. The city of Whitehorse is home to only about 25,000 people and as such has a small town feel. Over the course of a few days, we explored the town and nearby areas often taking part in what we liked to call reality tours where her parents would tell us some story about some location they hung out at back in the late 80’s.

Whitehorse it’s self is just a pretty typical small town with some tourist flair but the quaintness of the city combined with the surrounding untouched forests and trees made the place pretty damn beautiful. We visited places like Miles Canyon where the blue crystal Yukon River slices through the basalt hills of the Yukon Valley and the Takhini Hot springs which felt like it hadn’t been renovated since 1960 but I the best way possible.

We visited her grandparents and I got to know them a little better. Her grandfather, in particular, was a real standup guy. I heard a few stories from Alice’s father about his dad that made him seem almost angelic in nature but meeting him I understood why. Not a mean bone in the man’s body. I had recently started a collection of old license plates. I saw a set of really cool gold Yukon plates on Alice’s fathers shop wall so when we visited I knew I had to find a pair. I met up with a guy from craigslist to buy a couple and it turns out he had apprenticed under Alice’s grandfather. He spoke the same sorts of good will I had heard from everyone else and although he wasn’t related to me I took a sense of pride knowing that I could even share what I considered family with such a well-regarded man.

I met her aunt and uncle. Her uncle wouldn’t stop feeding me food and rum and coke after rum and coke. Alice didn’t want to drink around her parents ever, especially her father but I took her uncle up on his offer and had a few drinks. Again I was taken a back by the kindness of a man I had just met.

The Yukon is often called The Land Of The Midnight Sun. At this time of year the sun never truly leaves the sky till about 11:30. As someone who is also a bit of a night owl this messed with me greatly. This combined with the hot summer air and lack of AC in her grandparent's condo made sleeping hard. I remember laying next to Alice and running my fingers through her hair for hours on end trying to sleep. It’s during moments like these my mind would run. I recalled a conversation I had with my mother a couple months prior where I discussed borrowing some money from her to buy Alice a ring. During one of these sleepless nights next to Alice in this hot condo in Whitehorse, I think I finally made the decision that I was going to ask Alice to marry me.

These stories, locations, songs, feelings, and people have been ever combined in my mind to form one of the greatest experiences of my life. A few weeks after we got back from Whitehorse I went on my yearly trip with some friends to a nearby convention. Alice never liked it when I would leave her to go to these things but these conventions weren’t really her cup of tea so she would never come. Halfway through the convention, Alice began acting weird. I passed it off as he finally just accepting that I would be home soon and continued to enjoy the convention.

When I got home I sensed something was wrong in the way Alice was acting. She told me she didn’t know who she was anymore and that we needed to take a break. It tore me up but I accepted it. With the summer coming to a close I spent my days out of mind hoping praying she would come back. She didn’t. The day after we split she confessed her feelings to one of my best friends and he took her up on it. I was devastated. It wasn’t like I hadn’t considered the fact that she might be forming feelings for him, I just trusted her and I trusted him. After 7 years, after I decided I was willing to commit my entire life to this one woman she stabbed me in the back.

Now I sit here months later with summer fast approaching looking back on the most bittersweet time of my life, wondering what this summer and the future holds for me.

[desinaalani]

Once Upon a Time, I Fell for a Butler

Once Upon a Time, I Fell for a Butler

Once upon a time, I fell for a butler. We’ll call him Mr. Butler.

I was living in a cockroach pit studio apartment a block from the beach at the time. I’m not kidding about the cockroaches.

I worked for Mr. Butler’s boss (who happened to be a Danish count who’d made his fortune in gay porn), and sometimes when he knew his boss would be away from the office, Mr. Butler would bring me home-cooked…

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