Left screen, I’m going over the bachelor party footage. We’re recovering from a night of drinking over bacon and eggs in a high-corner wide-angle shot. Right screen, I’m talking to Aaron on Messenger.

Aaron: bro, you know I love you
Aaron: like for real
Aaron: no shit
Jeff: thanks man, i love you too
Aaron: no ‘you’re my bro’ shit
Aaron: the real deal

“No ‘You’re my bro’ shit”, he says. Bro. The word we sometimes use to remind each other that we’re family. Nothing emasculates some like the “l” word, but we’re passed that.

“you know I love you”. He was first to say it this time, and it catalyzes the tears down my face.

The video’s still playing. In it we’re ebullient, fraternizing, and I can’t help but laugh along too.

I remember another time, about three years ago, when I broke down after dealing with my mom and her incorrigible ways. I rolled a joint and smoked it as soon as I got off the phone. As the weed went to my brain, my mood evened out. I was numb to the pain but the tears didn’t stop, like a physical reflex.

Life is the same way. It’s never black and white, and there’s no absolute right or wrong. There are grey areas, points of passion between pleasure and pain.

Even crying from joy is an enigmatic microcosm of such an idea. I remember doing so only one other time, at the end of grade 7, during the final auditions for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Out of 10 schools, we were competing to spend the summer singing on stage with Donny Osmond. When they announced the name of our school we jumped out of our seats in cheer, but I could feel my face grimace from the emotion, tears filling up my eyes. It’s as if you’re overtaken by sadness that you’ll never feel as happy again.

Like yin and yang, one doesn’t exist without the other, and often they exist at once.

Tristan & America Get Their Groove Back

It appears that the heavenly bodies have aligned against me in a cosmic joke.

Let me explain. The trends at Tristan & America this season are actually sensible, and this is coinciding with the first time in my life that I’m in debt.

I used to shop at T&A years ago. With ribbed sweaters and sharp silk ties, they always had a classic sense of fashion. Around 2002 the style turned into what I can only describe as urban cowboy. Dress shirts were adorned with tasseled fringes and pre-worn edges. Mannequins even had the Texan string tie. For the next four years they experimented, what I’d consider a strong euphemism, with different styles, until this season.

The spring/summer collection has gone back to it’s classic roots, with a lovely blend of earthy tones. I like to stay with neutral colours — though nothing pastel — because I don’t like my clothes to make bold statements. I prefer to hide my personality, what I’m thinking, and let my actions speak for themselves.

New clothes are definitely more of a want than a need, so it’s hard for me to justify going further into debt to add more to an already full closet.

Maybe I’ll wait until it goes on sale at the end of summer. The problem, especially at T&A, is that the small sizes disappear within days.

The cosmic gods, they’re laughing at me.

Khaki Ressurection

The zipper on my khakis jammed and promptly died at a rather inopportune time (well, I guess there’s never really an opportune time for such a thing). When I brought them in to get fixed, I realized that I didn’t have a backup pair.

I only buy khakis at Randy River, the store with the wiiiide-legs that nearly cover my foot with shoes off. Even the Dickies relaxed-fit work-wear series aren’t wide enough, and they’re too stiff for my taste. They also lack a double-reinforced back leg cuff, which I like cause all my pants touch the ground.

The only problem with R2 is that the smallest size they have for pants is 30. As I found out when getting measured for the wedding, I’m actually a 26 waist, but I prefer 28–29 max so I can wear them low on the hips. When they’re 30, I have to cinch up my belt because otherwise they’re really low.

This season, the R2 khakis are all very dark with slight orange tones, and cargo pockets or frayed edges. Really not my style. At least I got my current pair back within a week. Hopefully they’ll survive me until next season.

Fall of the Ben cut

They discontinued the Ben wide-leg cut from Bluenotes. Instead, they’ve come out with a new Walker boot-cut. Off the shelf, the Walker cut really reminds me of the flare they put on girls jeans back when I was in high-school, but I only say this cause I like to give Aaron a hard time about it. They look good on him, but he can pull off anything.

Bluenotes is the only place I buy jeans, and jeans are the only thing I buy at Bluenotes. It’s because of the Ben cut that I go there (and certainly not their pop-culture silk-screened shirts). When I found out they aren’t being made anymore, I had to buy the last three pairs on the rack — two 29s and a pair of 28s.

Oh Ben. You define me.

What will I do for jeans now when they all wear out? For the last couple years I’ve done preppy tops with skater bottoms, but maybe my style will change by then.

I met a girl across the sea
Her hair the gold that gold can be
Are you the teacher of the heart?
Yes, but not for thee

So I asked out Jenn.

I suppose it shouldn’t come as a surprise; Jenn’s been — perhaps unwittingly — a source of quixotic inspiration as of late.

It was something I approached delicately, out of a sense of propriety (if indeed, such a thing still exists), and the fact that Aaron and Karen are our close mutual friends. An avowal of such a nature, handled incorrectly, always has the potential to be a cause of awkwardness at parties.

Not that I wasn’t already awkward enough around her.

Jenn’s presence alone would make me flustered. When I could speak, it would often be a flourish of nonsensical words. Something that’s humourous in hindsight, but rather frustrating in the moment.

To be so affected always took me by surprise.

And it worked, for a while. I moved on, having convinced myself of such an idea, never telling anyone how I felt. Then one day, I realized that I was only fooling myself. It became obvious when I’d think of her in the lyrics of every song. I couldn’t pretend I didn’t need to defend some part of myself from her. Until then, I never believed in love at first sight. I didn’t want to believe it. After all, how do you explain such an illogical, ineffable, irrepressible feeling? I grew, but not out of this, and in vain had I struggled.

She said no.

It’s funny to think that with the wisdom I’ve gained, the experiences I’ve had, I can still be reduced to such an adolescent emotion. I don’t think anyone, myself included, would have imagined this would happen to me again, not at this age, not with what I’ve been through.

I just wonder now, when we’re both at Aaron and Karen’s wedding, after giving me her polite declination, whether I’ll still feel the same. Sometimes you think you’ve moved on. You think you’re over someone, until you do something as simple as see them again and your heart stops. Love, attraction, infatuation, they’re never so conventional as to be understood.

What a silly thing a crush is.