With presents that come folded to perfection, boxed in white wrapping paper, and special washing instructions. This is the safest gift for someone my age, unlike the guessing game that music, toys, or games has become.

This specially processed, pure cotton fabric is designed for easy care and a crisp, confident look that lasts. The softness, absorbency and breathability of cotton, enhanced with innovative care features, ensure optimum wearability. Engineered for no-fuss, express handling. Requires almost no ironing. Today’s quintessential business shirt: time-saving, energy-saving, travel friendly.

We recommend using a mild detergent. Spin briefly, then hang to dry. Gently pull collar, cuffs and seams into shape. Touch up with a medium iron.

Not that I’m complaining. If it’s one thing my parents have been able to give me, it’s financial freedom. Never having to worry about how I’m going to pay for rent, or board, or education. It’s not easy for Chinese parents to show affection, an influence of the culture they grew up in, so they buy me things instead.

The dog they can love and take care of and want around, but not have to actually talk to or spend time with.

These are my treats.

I’ve officially switched from Movable Type to Wordpress, the latter of which I’ve decided is a far superior platform. This involved manually copying content from the old database, including every entry, comment, timestamp, and ip address logged. Even though it took me nearly a month, I was able to go through my old entries and make the thumbnails, links, quotes, and formatting consistent.

Thanks to the experiences of every day life, for the people I hate, the people I love, the ones I respect, and the ones who inspire me to do more. It’s these that make sure I never run out of things to say.

Thanks to Trolley, who reminds me with his comments that I always have at least one reader.

Thanks to Aaron and Pat, for showing me that they care when they tell me that they keep up-to-date with my life through this.

Thanks to Bronwen, with whom I’m the person I’ve always wanted to be.

Thanks to Number18, for giving me hope with her daily life, and her über cool input jacks.

Thanks to Tina and Aurora, for their enigmatic entries that inspire me to write better.

Thanks to Winston and Barb, for letting me know that I, in turn, could inspire someone to start writing for themselves.

Thanks to Sikander for being the guy who shares music with me, even though we’ve never met in real life.

Thanks to Sophia, for introducing me to music like CocoRosie, and quoting my own old archived entries back to me.

Thanks to Dru, a design artist I’ve admired for years, for unofficially stealing from me, an unspoken compliment I hold dear to my heart.

No thanks to the stalkers, who say they’ll never visit, yet continue to read on a daily basis. The ones who hide behind services like Anonymouse, naively believing that all their http requests are masked. The self proclaimed hypocrites, who have the FUCKING AUDACITY to tell me about the vices of blogging, yet blog themselves. The exact reason why I never answer my phone anymore.

No thanks to the sequacious commentors who say stuff but don’t say anything, or those who comment for the sake of personal advertisement.

No thanks to the hotlinkers, who continue to steal my images, and in turn, my bandwidth and money.

When I was converting my database and going through the old entries, I could recall each and every emotion that drove them. My writing has become less rambling, less depressing, less cryptic since I started back in 2002. As time goes on and the entries become more recent, there seems to be a subtle, burgeoning hope, a reflection of the experiences I’ve gone through and a changing worldview.

And from the beginning of this blog to the entries I write now, the most important thing is that I always have more people to thank.

Moving is often a task I avoid at all costs. The mess of packing, booking elevators, organizing rides, and physically shifting dirty boxes around becomes a lot more complicated than I care for. Being approached to help move by a close friend is a different story, however, as it becomes one of the few times that I can prove how much I’m willing to do for them.

It thus becomes a rather galvanizing scene to arrive with a party of friends at a doorstep, ready to help bring someone else into another phase in their life. This weekend was no exception, when helping Pat and Jen settle into their new place, a newly built four bedroom house out in the west end. Through most of last week, Pat and Jen had already moved the small items themselves, so the only things that were left were the bulky furniture. There were only eight of us, but we were finished before we knew it.

Pat and Jen paid us in beer, pizza, and wings, but given the fact that they had already done most of the work, we hardly deserved it. The rest of the day was spent playing Mario Power Tennis, Donky Konga, and table tennis.

Helping them moving was a reminder of how we’re all growing up. Getting married, getting old.

I once asked Darren, the only other male cousin with whom I share a Generation name, whether he thought we’d end up like our fathers, two brothers who also share their own. Our fathers who are moody, wasted old men who work too hard, and don’t get enough sleep. Before we realized it though, we had already turned into them, surviving the days on mostly restless sleep.

Look at us now. Pat and Jen are engaged, starting their family here. Aaron and Karen are one block away.

And the couples take home leftovers the way the parents do at all the Christmas parties during the holidays.

Being transferred to Bayview Glen in grade five was my first private school experience. The change from Catholic school was subtle; aside from the better funded facilities and passionate teachers, the only discernable difference was the manditory uniform. It was there that I met John in my classes, but back then he was the bully who threw me against a wall at first recess. My parents intervened in the form of an angry phonecall to the teacher, and I learned never to tell them about my problems at school again, out of fear that I would be emasculate me.

John maintained a reputation as one of the kings of the playground. At that age, he was a precocious pre-teen, matching machismo with Daniel Cappon for the attention of Pamela Arstikitis, the acerbic, metal-mouthed, blonde beauty. I remained blissfully young and ignorant, and we never really got along.

In grade seven, he changed schools to Upper Canada College, as his grandfather had done over fifty years ago, while I went through both the test and interview, and didn’t make the cut. Our parents knew of the school’s prestigious reputation and yearned desperately for their respective sons to be alumnus. Two years later I made a successful second attempt, and moved there too.

I was by myself, in a school full of jocks, academics, and artistic esoterics. John’s reputation didn’t follow him to this institution, where he was the odd, alienated, aloof, young man, while I remained the small, dysfunctional boy who never fit in anywhere. We were seperate loners, and our individuality is what brought us together. We never had any classes together, so lunches were spent philosophizing on the bleachers when the weather permitted, or misbehaving in Mr. Lorne’s classroom, throwing textbooks at each other in the winter. Eventually we went our seperate ways in university, and John was the only person I kept in touch with.

In the summer between grade seven and eight, as part of the children’s choir of Bayview Glen, we auditioned for a part in the Canadian premier of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. This consisted of a demo tape, a semi-final competition between 25 schools, and finals of 10, with only four school choirs being selected. The judges told us to hold our celebration until all the finalists were announced, but by the time we were called, we couldn’t hold it in, and let out with a thunderous roar. It was the only time in my life that I was so happy I cried.

The picture of our choir, roughly 25 students between the ages of 10 and 14, ended up in the performance booklets that were handed out to the audience as they walked from the lobby to their seats in the Elgin Theatre. We were far from friends back then, but we stood next to each other. I still don’t understand why.

John’s haircut hasn’t deviated from a hastily brushed mop. Mine, on the other hand, has gone through various stages of shaggyness, poofiness, and occasional what-was-I-thinking. It’s just like the two of us. John did all his growing up before he was 12, and at his core he’s essentially the same person now as he was back then, while I continue the never-ending cycle of learning and growing.

And this will probably be true in another 15 years.

This is what I wake up to every day.

What I enclose in arm and leg at night, or press my back against when I roll over.

They say it takes weeks to get used to sleeping with someone (or without someone, when the relationship is over), but for me, the transition is seamless. All it took was an extra pillow, and some space accommodation for two stuffed animals, and a braided shred of old blankie.

Every day, I wake up between two and five in the morning. It’s an affliction I’ve had for years, something that wouldn’t be so bad if I could fall asleep again, but my mind always races, keeping me up for another hour or two. When she’s next to me though, my thoughts remains calm.

So what will I do when she’s gone?