The checkout clerks (girls mostly) at my grocery store have a strange habit of not acknowledging the next customer until the current one has paid. So there’s often a point where the current customer has passed the cash register to put their groceries in a cart, and they’re just waiting for their credit card to go through.

I end up standing right in front of the clerk, who won’t say anything, even though you know they see you out of their peripheral vision. They only say hello as soon as the previous customer has been rung through. Like they’re computers who can’t handle more than one task per person at a time.

It’s quite awkward.

I tell her she’s beautiful. Over and over again. As often as I can.

But she shakes her head, and says I only think so because I love her.

It’s true. But would I love her any less if she didn’t have those soft, innocent eyes? If she didn’t wear her hair up, or down, or curly, or straight, or different every time I saw her? If her body didn’t curve so distractingly when she lets herself fall into me?

It makes me wonder if anyone sees the same thing that I do.

To me, her beauty is obvious, not subtle in any way.

So I tell her, over and over again.

Sometimes I think she’ll start to believe me if I say it enough.

I’ve always enjoyed reading about people who are in love, but most of all when that love is unrequited. Vivid pictures painted in details about a saucy diastema, the observed ritual of walking by a certain table every day to get a cup of water for paint, an unsolicited brush against a hip. Stories about awkwardness, weakness, burning desire.

Perhaps it’s because I can relate to these experiences, or because they make me feel like I’m less alone in my own clumsy dealings with the opposite sex. Even though there are countless stories written about unrequited love, there aren’t enough. For the few of us who are “oppressed by the figures of beauty”, as Leonard Cohen calls it, nothing makes us feel better. All we can do is silently commiserate with the words of those who share themselves in this way.

When I look through my old entries, it seems like most of them are about love or a torch I carry in one way or another, and how this affects me.

And sometimes I wonder if this is the reason why people come here to read my words.

Before you start reading, play this song. It’s a Deftones cover of The Smiths’ song Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. There have been a few other artists who have done covers too, including Muse, but only Chino has the kind of raw emotion in his voice that matches Morrisey.

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This song was written for right now.

I’ve moved mainly to video. Getting a little tired of the still photograph medium. I had my first commission this weekend at the NAC, recording a jazz trio concert in exchange for a few tickets for my friends.

If you couldn’t tell, I’ve been obsessed with colour tones and vignetting lately. Making my photos look like old memories. Maybe this is a way for me to go back; reverting to past experiences, drawing inward as an introvert, regressing to a different time, when all I had was innocence but that was enough.

I’ve been strangely serene. Sleeping well. When things get complicated I’ve been less stoic, and more light-hearted.

Maybe it’s the house being clean. Maybe I’m satisfied with the the new decorations. Maybe it was the last weekend, getting caught up on errands and tasks, finally feeling like my head is above water.

Maybe it’s the weather. The rain. The wind. The warmth of the sun. The temperature drop. The way I can leave my window open at night.

Maybe it’s feeling socially fulfilled. Seeing friends, laughing hard, trips out of town, trips on my own.

Maybe it’s the nights spent holding her, caressing every inch of her skin. Maybe it’s the way she held me too.

Maybe it’s the acceptance. A way I’ve let go where I’ve found myself finally free, and living. Something I always think I’ve been able to do, only to realize a day later that I didn’t before, but I have now, honestly.

Maybe it’s all the movies I’ve been watching in the time between, seeing myself in every character, every situation. Going back to high school, being back at university.

I’m not sure what it is, but I know this feeling won’t last forever. It never has. It’s the flux between storm and serenity that moves me.

Been writing this entry over the last week.

In a couple days, this blog turns six.

Maybe I just had a few good weeks.

Ever since Wordpress 2.5 added native tagging support, I’ve been going through my old entries and appropriately tagging each one. Recently, I arrived at the chunk of time where I started dating Louise.

It’s said that everyone has at least one relationship where you look back and ask yourself, “What the hell was I thinking?”. I never believed it until, four years later, I came across those old posts. The words were a stark reminder of how hard I tried to make it work, of how much I did for her, and how it was never good enough.

She would belittle my attempts to grow and improve, push me to the limits of my tolerance, and when I would speak up about how much it hurt me, she would justify it in saying that she would refuse to hide her opinions because couples should be “open”. I kept getting put down, over and over again.

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Still playing around with black-and-white tones. This time, I went with less contrast, so more of a low-key feel, not just in the overall scene but in the figures themselves. In doing so, the texture isn’t so blown-out as in my previous black-and-whites.

I love the dreamy look of high-key, but for more focus on facial features, I’m starting to turn to a greater range of light.

 

In return for modeling for some of my other projects, I agreed to give Agnes and Soph some portraits. Siblings are generally easy to work with. There’s a comforting familiarity that lets them act naturally together. To tell them apart, one simply has to observe how differently each acts in front of a camera.

There’s a good mix of body types and skill levels in my Tai Chi class. As the most junior person in the group, I have the benefit of always working with people who are better than me (although being able to teach someone myself would certainly help solidify the concepts in my head).

Nothing beats working with the teacher, who can precisely vary his skill level so one can learn and absorb things in small increments, a systematic way of fine-tuning the details at a gradual pace. It’s something that takes a great deal of time for better results in the long-run, and I’m sure that in this sense, he’s investing in his students as much as one invests in the class.

Still, there are senior students who teach me significant things within a single minute of working with them. They fill in the gaps in my knowledge that I’m not sure I’d be able to figure out by myself, because they’ve been at my level before and understand what I’m doing wrong. Add to this a propensity to teach and help, and every class I walk away feeling like I’m improving, if only by a small amount. Sometimes it’s to the point where I feel like my mind is going to explode, and the coordination of my body needs to catch up with the concepts in my brain.

But there are also senior students who seem stiff and uncooperative to the point where I feel I don’t learn anything from them. And even though I’m told they’re being nice and not overbearing, I find practicing with them to be very difficult. It’s as if they’re working too far beyond my level, where my structure falls apart and I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Maybe it just means I’m not skilled enough to adjust and do it right yet. I’m still thankful to be able to work with them though, because at the very least, they remind me that not everyone who’s going to attack you will be cooperative.

We used to have a code: I’d ask him “Hey Tom, you want to vandalize the graveyard tonight?”, this obscure line from an episode of Married…with Children.

If he responded with, “No, Jeff, that would be wrong” (the next line from the episode), that meant he’d agree to throw rocks into a little stream under an overpass during our grade 7 lunch break. When we were finished eating in the cafeteria, we’d walk to the stream with the remains of the hour, dressed in burgundy tie and pine blazer, heaving any appropriately sized rocks into the water. It was our goal to block the flow of the stream one day.

Sometimes we’d throw what was left of our lunches into the stream, and be rewarded with the glimpse of a solitary fish breaking the surface of the water and snatching a morsel.

By the time we returned to class, the sheen on my brogues would be replaced by a fine layer of dust from walking around in the gravel. I’d wear that dust proudly, because no one ever knew how it got there, a secret code between him and me.

Sometimes I check up on Tommy. Not that he knows. I wonder if we could be friends again. We lead two different lives, but that’s never stopped me from being friends with someone. Part of me is scared that he’s never changed, never grown out from the elementary school Tom I used to know — something all too common in my experience — and I’d just rather not know. It’s enough for me not to contact him.

But I still root for him, not because we used to be such good friends, but because I know that if he can make it, so can I.

It’s almost two in the morning. Yet again, I should be sleeping, but I’m writing now, not because the inspiration is particularly striking, but because I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to write again. So now I’m enjoying my new scented candles and the way the apple cinnamon aroma mixes with the night air coming through my back door.

I needed this long weekend.

Julie and I just got back from Pat and Jen’s one-year anniversary party, in which I was finally able to give them the anniversary gift I’d been saving since the wedding: a collection of video messages left by guests during the reception (recorded on the laptop I’m using to type this right now, no less).

I also got a chance to try their new Wii Fit, learned how to play Bohnanza (a bean trading game), and pigged out on gigantic hamburgers and German potato salad.

Been trying to finish my projects and tie up loose ends.

Been trying to match schedules with people: next weekend is dinner with Misun and Frédéric and their two boys (which we’ve been trying to coordinate for more than a month now), the weekend after is John’s visit, and the one after that is dinner, movie, and Cranium with Dan and his family.

Been buying light fixtures and shelves and candles, indulging my obsession with frosted glass, and making minor house upgrades.

Been spending more than I should.

Been in love with her more than I can help.

The weekends are all I have left. After working 8+ hours during the week, I don’t feel like doing anything but vegging out when I get home. So now it’s already Sunday — or Monday morning, I should say — and I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing so far. Not that it’s a bad thing, since I’ve been able to enjoy myself instead of feeling guilty that I’m not getting enough done. I tell myself that I’ll be productive when I wake up, but who knows.

Sometimes, long weekends are for catching up on doing nothing. And man, am I behind in that.