Not really an answer to a question that has been asked - more of dispelling an assumption:

Okay - this isn’t really a question per se but it is something that has come up both online and in the real world with those that know I have lived in the yurt. Many people I know are shocked to see that we are happily living in a metropolitan area of over five million people after moving here from a county whose entire population was only a third of our neighbourhood.

But really, I don’t feel like I did anything out of character by moving to a city. In fact, growing up in a small New England town (okay - embarrassing true confession here) I would actually hear the Peter Gabriel song “Big Time” and the part that goes

The place where I come from is a small town
They think so small, they use small words
But not me, I’m smarter than that,
I worked it out
I’ll be stretching my mouth to let those big words come right out
I’ve had enough, I’m getting out
to the city, the big big city

seemed to speak to me. I always dreamed of living in the city - in that time it was Boston. To the people who knew me in high school, our moving to the yurt would be more surprising then our moving to Toronto. Moving to the yurt was partly driven by a dream that I admit conflicted with the previous one. This one came about when visiting the womyns land that Sage’s mom lives at back in 1995. I saw that they were living happily on next to no money and in very small houses. I realized that by doing that, I could have much more free time by only working part time. While visiting, someone there showed us a brochure from Pacific Yurts and that stuck with us for several years until we actually fulfilled that dream.

Another question that comes up here but long-term readers probably already know the answer to - why did we move to Canada?

The short answer is summed up in the intro to all of Sage’s podcasts. In 1992, when Sage and I had known each other for only a few months two things happened. The first was that just after we were married, we took a trip to Montreal for a weekend. I’d been there a few times (though as a part of a group of drunken college students so it wasn’t quite the same) but Sage had never been. The air conditioning in the room was really bad and gave us both headaches and so we decided to walk out to find a pharmacy - at 3:00 AM. We felt safer walking on the street at that hour there than we ever did in an American city at 3:00 PM.

Also in 1992, we saw a bit of Pat Buchanan’s speech at the Republican National Convention - a creepy religious and homophobic speech. Having seen that (and in my case having recently read The Handmaid’s Tale which promised a sad vision for liberal Americans who didn’t get out in time), we vowed that if the Republicans got any worse we were moving to Canada. Fortunately that year, Clinton was elected and we didn’t think much of that plan for some time. However, in 2003, after friends were run off the road and screamed at by a guy in a pickup truck for having a “No War!” bumper sticker, we ressurected that dream and after being encouraged by those friends (”What are you waiting for??”) and talking for probably a half an hour we decided to start looking.

It is interesting, looking back, that all of our major decisions - our moves, our leaving for the yurt, our deciding to get married, have a baby, or leave the country all were very quickly made. I think we have spent longer discussing what restaurant to go to for dinner some nights than we did making those decisions. If I were to guess, none of those discussions lasted more than an hour, and most less than 1/2 hour.

These questions were added on November 10, 2005:
Andrea asked: “Ooo! Are you a touchy-feely person? Or just with Sage & paul? Or maybe not at all?”

I’ve always been someone who likes the idea of being touchy-feely but never quite made it work as I can be hugely self conscious when it comes to stuff like that. For example, I’m rarely one to initiate a hug but am glad when someone else does.

Ron asked: “A long while ago, I saw a pic of you with long hair. When did you cut it and why?”

Yes, indeed, I used to have hair down to the middle of my back. I was of two minds about it. On the one hand, I tended to look like I act (liberal, etc) - one coworker saw that picture and said I looked like someone who chains himself to a tree in BC :). On the other hand, I’ve always had short hair and so that felt most like me. Plus, having long hair is a royal pain in my opinion. Too much work. So I quit cutting my hair in January of 1999, and cut it again in January of 2001 just before we started going looking for a rental (and at one point even considered buying a home). The idea was that as we were about to leave the yurt we’d have an easier time finding a place to live if we looked more conventional. Not only that, I was pretty sure I’d have to get a “real” job soon and needed to look presentable for that. To this day I have short hair since I feel more comfortable at work that way. The same goes for the beard. I no longer have that because I feel as if the point of the beard for me was that I didn’t have to think about it. If I have to trim it and shave parts of my face I might as well make it easy and get rid of the whole thing.

Lisa asked these three questions: “how old are you? when did you meet sage? and do you have any pets now?.

I was born in 1970 so as of this editing that makes me 37.

I met Sage online in 1991. While I may write a “Time Machine” entry about it one of these days, Sage does a great job of it in Sage Words # 6-9 here.

Pets? Yes. At our peak, we had eight cats - Shelly, Jay, Cilantro, Habanero, Harriet, Karma, Claire, and Anita. Over the years, we lost several to various causes. Today we have four kitties - Shelly (now 14), Harriet and Karma (Both now about 12), and Peter (almost 2).

Gary asked: “Where were you born, and what about family? I assume you live far from them now, and if so, was that a hard decision and how did it affect you?”

I was born in El Paso, Texas. It is a source of great amusement to my coworkers that a Texan (okay, I only lived there about 6 weeks but technically I am more Texan than George W!) would move to Canada. I grew up in Vermont, though.

Family? My mom died in July of 2000 though my dad is still alive. I quit talking to both of them in 1992 which was a very difficult and very good decision. At the time they were both alcoholics and made my life miserable. In many ways, due to their alcoholism, they both “died” (their personalities anyway) before I even graduated high school. I have a brother who lives with his wife in New Hampshire. We see each other for a day or so every few years - I’d like to see him more but we haven’t quite figured out how to keep in good contact and frankly I think he’s still a bit crabby that I quit talking to my parents. To his credit, he was 13 when I quit talking to them and they divorced shortly thereafter and his life was very hard then and I wasn’t as supportive as I should have been.

So the short answer is that the decision to break contact with them was difficult but the decision to move here was really easy.

On the other hand, of all my relatives other than Sage, I’d say I’m closest to Sage’s mom. Paul is particularly close to her. That was a hard decision but she, herself, thought it was the best decision. They write each other several times a week sometimes and Kite comes up 2-3 times every year which is really great for us all. Kite is still glad we moved and told us that she was reading a book about a person who lost his partner to AIDS there was a moment when the survivor was saying that he was sad that his partner was dead but that he was glad to know that he was no longer suffering and was now in a better place. She laughed and remarked that that’s how she feels about our moving. She’s sad that we’re no longer there but very glad to know we’re in a better place.

Tina W. wrote: “Did you and Sage and Paul legally change your last name to Tyrtle?”

Nope - we thought about it and even just went ahead and had our cheques in the Ozarks printed with our real last names hyphenated to Tyrtle. Plus for me, I have a bit of a reputation built up under my real last name. And the best thing is that I can have an online personality and a work personality and the two don’t often accidentally intersect. Actually, I think it is more like my friends know us as Tyrtle while coworkers and other people in official sorts of relationships know us by our “real” last names.

More later I’m sure. In the meantime, should you come up with any more questions, drop me a line.