More words
From mark_monroe  this time:

Success:
This is an interesting one, because I don't really consider myself to be a very successful person. Somewhere, I absorbed the notion that my success would be defined by owning my own home and being settled into a relationship and having a career that fulfilled and provided for me. And I don't really have any of those things. I'm relatively self-sufficient. I have a nice apartment, and I have achieved some cool things. But that concept of "success", I wouldn't say I have it. Though if you asked me what success really means, my brain would tell you that it means being loved, and living your life in a positive way for yourself and the others in it. Doing things that bring you joy and doing your best to live every minute as fully and as honestly as you can. But that's for other people  ;)

Positivity:
When I was seeing a psychiatrist during my cancer, I complained to him one day about feeling like I wasn't positive enough, that my attitude wasn't good enough. He looked at me and said "Here's the thing about positivity. It doesn't work." Studies had been done and he told me that the real key was authenticity, being honest about what you're feeling. If you're mad, be mad until you aren't any more. Same with sadness or any other emotion. And I do my best to do that. I said to someone that it's the difference between going to an open house, or buying the house and moving in. You have to let those states be transitory, you can't "move in" and stay there forever. Feel it, let it go, and move on.
That being said, I believe that this world is going to beat you down every chance it gets and there are horrors unimagined waiting around every corner. But since those all exist anyway, and need no help from me, why would I dwell on them? Why not strive to be a positive influence on the world and do what I can to spread some energy to counteract all those things? I guess I'm an optimist, because I'm a cynic.

Attraction:
Very, very mutual.
But beyond that, attraction in general is a mystery to me. I don't understand its mechanics, its patterns. I never understand people who are only attracted to one thing and one thing only "I only like musclemen/twinks/big men/black men or whatever" It's so many things to me. Faces, hair, hands, bodies, attitudes, energy, style. For any man I pointed out that turned me on, I could point to a polar opposite that does too.
And I love my attractions. Those wonderful, hormonal moments when some passes you on the street and something about him makes you tingle, activates something primal inside you. Those moments to me are proof that there is more than just the physical realm. It's magic.

Creativity:
Creativity is one of the things I respect most of all. As long as I can remember, I have needed to create. I did pencil drawings when I was a kid, copying comic artists I loved. I did theatre in high school. I started writing. I paint now. Even down to things like how I arrange my furniture or what goes on my walls or the colours of my sheets or what I wear. I wish I could sing and dance as well, just so I would have more avenues for this current of energy in me. I need that aspect of thoughtfulness, that "this must be this way or it won't be right" I have no idea where it comes from (again, Magic) but I treasure it and I think I would die if it ever left me, or at least, I wouldn't enjoy living much.

Toronto:
This city is my adopted home. My battleground. My field of victory. My bete noire. My creative springboard.
I love the energy, the food, the multiculturalism. I love that the person walking down the street behind me might not be speaking English at all. I love the lights, the noise, the colours. I love the art and music and the writers I have met. I have loved the places I've lived and the people I've met. And if I hadn't lived here, I might not have lived through my cancer. I might not have been diagnosed in time. I might not have found a way to flourish in the wake of the beast's descent into my life. I love the rusting hulks of the streetcars that will soon be replaced, and I'll hum with excitement the first time I see one of the new ones in service.
I hate that I am so far from my family and where I was born, but I love where I am.