equivocality » Daily Life

perpetual eve

Jeff — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:03:22 +0000

This day is the same every year. The streets are dead and filled with slush, the stores all closed. No matter where I am, it seems people are looking for a channel on TV to watch a corporate-sponsored countdown, and I always feel alone even though I’m surrounded by friends.

If it’s the same every year, it’s strange that my memories of New Year’s Eve are so mixed. Jocks harassing me on the bus. Bundling up in big coats to share petit coronas outside. Panic attacks. Blonds and redheads. Rich foods and too much drink. And somehow the people I love and the people I hate end up at the same parties.

Sometimes it reminds me too much of my childhood. My family hosted the same countdown party every year that became the only real time we spent with other people, and the only time we ever caught up with our “friends”. Numbers would be shouted in unison, champagne would be toasted, nothing would change. An empty ritual for empty people. Maybe that’s why I never feel like I belong anywhere on this day. It’s like I’m waiting to feel what everyone else around me is feeling when the ball drops.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2012. | 6 comments
Post tags: lonliness, parents, parties, rituals | Categories: Daily Life, Video

it is impossible to stop the motion of snow at night

Jeff — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 23:23:18 +0000

I got what I wanted for Christmas.

Piles of it. Sheets falling from the sky, melting instantly on your windshield, forcing the traffic to 20kph on the highway. So much that you have to brush off your car if you leave it parked for more than a minute, but the sky glows orange for you to savour every second.

Not that I celebrate Christmas, but I do enjoy the trappings of the season. The lights and the decorations and the spirit and the snow. I’m just sick of the consumerism. It seems perverse to see all this fancy paper wrapped around a box only to be torn off and thrown away. To see people scrambling to buy things just to have something to give. I’ve got it just right, where I don’t exchange gifts with any of my friends cause I don’t want either side to feel obliged. I’d rather give a present when the time is right for both people, and save my money so it’s something special every now and then. The last thing I want is to be a scrooge, but the older I get, the more I feel like that’s what I’m turning into.

The holidays are the only time I truly veg out. I watch more TV on Christmas day than in the entire year combined, marathon reruns of Dog the Bounty Hunter and Parking Wars and Cake Boss. Shows that are fascinating in short bursts with the right company and snacks, but never good enough to make a point to watch on my own.

I was lucky enough to spend some quality time with a cheap electric guitar. The body was dusty, the strings were dirty, and the intonation left something to be desired, but the action had me feeling like all the time I’ve spent with a stiff steel-string acoustic has paid off. About a month ago I put down a $200 deposit on the nylon-string beauty I’ve always wanted (with the promise that I’d get my deposit back if I didn’t like it) so I could wrap my arms around the body, run my hands across the glossy finish, and feel the fretboard beneath my fingers. Guitar has been my only therapy lately. The only thing I can throw myself into and forget about everything else, the only part of myself that I can tangibly tell is improving, something I need to be feeling right now.

I’ve never been this uncertain about the future, and it’s freaking me out. I already had a feeling 2012 was going to be a new start. My projects would be done by the end of the year, I’d have a nice little break, and I’d be ready to begin again. Now I’m forced into that reality, and life is soon going to be very different. I don’t know if I’ll be able to handle it, but I suspect I won’t have much of a choice.

a horse is not a home

Jeff — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 21:13:36 +0000

Toronto may be my mistress, but I still flirt with the idea of making her my wife. Wondering if I can escape the life and the memories I have in Ottawa. I make the trip a few times a year, and sometimes it feels like it’s more often than I see my friends here. If I still call Toronto home, maybe it’s time I should make it my home again. But I know it’s a drastic step for the sake of closure.

Sweet and creamy…Simon’s two greatest alcoholic adversaries.

It’s strange to have too many people to see and never enough time. Growing up as a socially awkward guy, it’s a problem I never imagined I’d ever have. There hasn’t even been enough time for myself, although I suppose that’s the way I wanted it. I just don’t feel safe when I’m by myself nowadays.

Lobster in Chinese is literally “dragon shrimp”.

I remember my dad taking me to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese seafood restaurant downtown¹ once when I was a kid. It was one of the only things we ever did together, without my mom. We never went again either, although I suspect my dad went by himself fairly often, and it was a small glimpse into one of his private rituals.

Also, my first real taste of lobster. I can still feel the slippery sauce on my fingers as I fished for morsels of flesh out of a lobster’s shell with my chopsticks. Being there, sharing in one of his favourite dishes, was his way of bonding with me, even when there were no real words spoken between us.

So I treated my dad to dinner the other night, and we bonded in the same way again some 20 years later, over an order of two Cantonese lobsters in black bean sauce, and a plate of cashew chicken. I began to wonder if home is where I’ll always have a place to stay. Where I know someone will take care of me if I need it. Where there’s some decent Chinese food.

Sometimes I get plugged into a new circle of friends, ones with lives far removed from my own. Most of them have regular plans, long-term relationships, maybe a child or two. John is especially fun to observe with his son. He’s more of the provider than the caretaker type (a man who doesn’t even know how to feed himself), so he’s awkwardly competent with cradling and other practical baby duties, but he most certainly tries and cares and loves Will to death.

I can tell John tries and cares and loves me too. He once got me extra maple syrup for my waffles at the Picklebarrel, one of those things he didn’t need to do but did anyway. And since he’s usually an oblivious, inconsiderate bastard, an extra blister pack of maple syrup might as well be a new car. I have no roots at this point in my life, and it feels like there are more people who care about me in Toronto than in Ottawa. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to let go of it as home.

My dream condo, 39th floor, with a view of the CN Tower and SkyDome only a few blocks away.

The holidays are approaching, and the CN Tower is hung beautifully like a Christmas tree, strings of red and green lights creating a spiral wrap. Even the construction cranes are decorated. But they’re still a construction cranes, and as seductive as she is, Toronto is still a dirty, crowded city. A city I’d rather visit than live in, a place with as much to love as there is to hate. It’s a strange contradiction that’s left me unsure of where I belong.

Quite a trek when you lived in the suburbs.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2011. | 6 comments
Post tags: father, friendship, John, Toronto | Categories: Daily Life, Photos, Video

this is interlude

Jeff — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:24:37 +0000

Download audio file (we-all-try.mp3)

I wasn’t ready for the snow. I pictured myself at home with nothing better to do than sleep in as it was falling, but instead I’m too busy to enjoy it. Now there’s nothing left of the snow that has fallen, cause fate seems to be conspiring with the weather to make this Christmas anything but white.

Unfortunately, this is when I need to be buried under snow. I’m convinced the winter will wash everything away, and I’ll emerge clean again.

I don’t know what to do with myself lately. Ever since Will was born, catch-up time with John has been a call he gives me every now and then between methods of public transportation as he makes his way home from work. I just want to talk to someone and have their undivided attention, cause it’s the old habits I miss the most, the late nights when you’d rather stay in someone’s company than sleep. But the only people who understand are also the people with their own lives, and too often I’m left to my own devices.

As a result, I’ve been feeling vulnerable. I hold myself back from reaching out to the wrong arms, the ones who touch my face and drag their nails across my skin, the ones with familiar smells and comforting weaknesses, the ones who appreciate the things I want to be appreciated for, but none of whom can give me what I need.

Dennis’s socks.

I’m sure I’d feel as lonely as ever if I wasn’t so over-stimulated and ready to be by myself for a while. This probably won’t happen until some point during the holidays, and even then, I had plans on catching up on personal projects and chores I can only bring myself to do once a year¹. Maybe this is adults mean when talk about how time passes more quickly when you’re older.

I’m in between places now, unsure of where I am or where I’m headed. But at the very least, I know what I’ve been through and what’s behind me.

i.e. Cleaning the floorboards and walls of the house.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2011. | One comment
Post tags: busy, music, vulnerability, winter | Categories: Daily Life, Photos

we put our feet just where they had to go

Jeff — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 10:30:16 +0000

Our final days grow ever darker, but winter feels far away when I turn on the A/C in the car as we set off on the scenic route. It’s strange to think I’ll never be here again. I do my best to take my time, to remember the smell of every wooden house and twirl of hair and cozy wind. This was never a way for me to escape my life back home, only a journey I knew I needed to take.

But the novelty of grey hair and almond eyes has long run out, and now I’m just a man, trying to find out where he belongs.

A mask that smiles.

Tiny bouldering wall in Blowing Rock park.

Kil’n Time, a ceramic studio where you can paint your own piece, adorn it with decorations, and sinter it in a furnace.

Scotch egg, served chilled with greens, tomatoes, and berry vinaigrette dressing. Also, deep fried pickles (sliced, not quartered) with ranch sauce. I’ve hated pickles my entire life, but these were REALLY good.

take me somewhere nice

Jeff — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:40:45 +0000

It’s night, and a gentle song begins on my bedside speaker. Until this point, I’d always wondered who’d be the first to hear this song with me. Whose breath I’d feel on my body as the melody got lost in the darkness along with our inhibitions. It wasn’t a song I’d been saving, only one I never had the chance to share until I found myself here, exploring the open fields and windswept mountains and towns in between.

We have to stop meeting like this.

The seafood club: smoked salmon, herbed cream cheese, cucumbers, mixed greens, tomatoes, and sprouts on dark rye. Perfect in every way.

State Street.

The willing suspension of disbelief

Jeff — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 10:28:12 +0000

The stars are clear out here. A train runs through the centre a few times a day, blaring a horn as a warning to people who may be going from building to building by crossing the tracks. It’s a tiny village in a snowglobe, only the snow hasn’t come.

I haven’t been around this many people in years. I’ve long wondered what it’d be like to live this life one more time. To have rituals and theatre plans and regular friends. None of this is real, of course, but I don’t mind pretending if only for a little while.

Girlcave. Fucking awesome.

For groceries we drive to a farmer’s market in a nearby town. It’s an important little ritual, to support locally grown produce, to get meat that isn’t genetically modified and fruit that hasn’t been picked before it’s ripe so it can be shipped thousands of miles to a grocery store. This is eating well in such a different way than I’m used to, and every day it’s a little different. The vendors come and go, and farmers, who make their own beef patties and sausages, will change the spices used in their recipes.

Candied apple samples.

Applebutterapplebutterapplebutter. The man told us the story of how he grabbed the apples as they fell on the lawn, and how he didn’t hold back on the cinnamon and sugar in the recipe. I eat this every single day.

Pan seared, bone-in pork loin chop, paired with dark cherry sage butter, served with whipped potatoes and seasonal vegetables. Cooked just right with a bit of pink in the middle.

‘Merica, fuck yeah.

this same flower that smiles today

Jeff — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 06:38:54 +0000

I find myself resigned to someone’s care. It’s not an easy kind of control to relinquish, but lately I trust as little as possible in the future and do my best to go along for the ride. As the old poem goes; be wise, strain the wine, or as Zorba would put it, “DON’T BE DELICATE”. I didn’t plan on living forever anyway.

On a cold night, we keep the only promise made, one of those small wonders that still make me believe. I fit somewhere between needs and wants, temporary relief and long-term side effects, class and homework, nibbled lips and bitten tongues.

I got made fun of in high-school for having magnetic poetry in my locker.

shit.

The only thing I regret is not buying this.

I miss this so much.

The Tavern is Abingdon’s oldest building, with a moss-top roof.

Pot roast, slow cooked in wine and stock for six hours, and served with a roasted potato medley, tossed with fresh seasonal greens, mushrooms, and goat cheese. Lovely jubbly.

At The Harvest Table.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2011. | 2 comments
Post tags: cats, experiences, food, travel | Categories: Daily Life, Photos, Video

a well-watered place

Jeff — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:43:19 +0000

The fall is holding out against the winter, trees clutching bright leaves before the chill breaks their grips. It’s wonderfully warm among such colours, and we walk in the valleys of Appalachia to take in the smell of mountain air as rustic hands around us work livestock and soil. In old Aramaic, Damascus means “a well-watered place”, a fitting name as the rain soon grows too heavy to be exploring the tiny town, population 981.

I wonder if Dairy Queen was named as such because the restaurant here already took Dairy King.

How to tell you’re in farm country: a cowbell on the front door, used to notify the waitress of customers.

A baby-faced farm hand with a grey Polo t-shirt stretched across his pot-bellied frame asks us what we’re taking pictures of as he dips a thin sandwich (consisting solely of two slices of meat and two slices of toast) into a shallow bowl of beans. He recounts to us the two weeks he was in Western Canada working for a large cattle corporation, and the thickness of his southern drawl betrays the rurality of his upbringing, typical of many around here.

Every day the sun rises, I grow a little stronger. The blood in my bruise has spread along the surface, and the sharpness of this particular pain reminds me that I’m still alive. As the yellow-blue stain fades away, it’s a small comfort to know I’m always healing, whether I’m aware of it or not.

© Jeff @ equivocality, 2011. | 3 comments
Post tags: experiences, interesting people, travel | Categories: Daily Life, Photos

some day i'm gonna find it out

Jeff — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:36:34 +0000

Download audio file (call-it-in-the-air.mp3)

Over-stimulation is a slingshot moved by the force of company for the sake of self-distraction.

And yet I’ve never felt so alone. The nights are filled with absence, which I try to mollify with indulgence. It’s okay for now cause I know I’ll be okay some day, when it’ll be safe to be alone with my thoughts again.