I was talking to Eugene, or Yoog as I used to call him, the other day after having no contact with him for over a decade. It was good to reminisce about the good times we had so long ago, me going to Australia for the first time to meet a friend of my mothers’, and him coming to visit from Australia, to stay with me.

It was odd to hear that I affected his decision to shift the focus of his card collection to baseball, as odd as it was to find out that one of my ex’s would scream my name in her mind while masturbating.

I’m surprised, astonished, at how much influence I could ever have on anyone. I still can’t believe it, since a card collection can be such a significant part of a young boys life, and unattractive Chinese guys aren’t generally the object of anyones’ fantasy.

The more I think about it though, the more I realize all the little things that I’ve done to affect people, whether it’s someone’s choice of university (which, I feel, is no small decision), or how I could ever bring someone to tears.

I’ve felt like my life has been so worthless for so long that I’ve been blinded to the part I’ve played in the life of others. It’s only with this new information, this catalyst, that I’m able to begin to realize that I’m not so worthless after all.

There have always been people whom I admire and respect. It’s only these people who really have an affect on me. After all, hearing hurtful words from a person you look up to is much worse than from someone you don’t have any respect for. I’ll always wonder if it’s respect which allowed me to have influence on others, or whether there was some other reason, such as love or friendship.

And perhaps, with time, there will be more.

The weather has been beautiful lately. I’ve always found the briskness of early spring to be indefinably nostalgic. The grey pavement seems to be freshly laid, from the absent snow which so recently covered it. The yellow grass, the cloudless skies, it all seems to be such a poignant sign of the change in season.

I was sitting on Trolley’s sex lounger yesterday in his hot apartment, and I felt a slight draft coming from his window. Trolley’s apartment always seems toasty to me, so it was refreshing to feel a breeze from the outside. It reminded me of this great quote from Moby Dick:

Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed in the general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.

I happened to tune into CHUO FM on Sunday at around 11:30 pm when I was testing my alarm clock, and I was fascinated at what I heard. I generally don’t like the radio at all, but this programme had me hooked. A male voice, apparently a co-host, whose host had not showed up, had the show to himself for the hour. The programme was terrible. This person had a decent radio voice, but the things he was talking about, the tricks he used to avoid dead air, everything he did made the show interestingly bad. I had to listen until the end, because of how rarely I experience something so poorly done, yet so public at the same time.

I was lucky enough to discover a group called E.S. Posthumus, and there doesn’t seem to be an official website, or any website for that matter, in which I can find out more information. They seem to be doing well, with songs on soundtracks like Spiderman, Minority Report, and Unfaithful. One of my current favourites is Tikal. I recommended them to Jeff and Nick, since I remember how Jeff was getting into the instrumental stuff right now. He told me that he had a four tier system of knowing whether to keep a song. I should probably try doing that, since I currently have over a gig of songs I haven’t decided whether to keep or not.