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chapters

1

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I’m writ­ing this over break­fast — a sim­ple flax bagel with cream cheese and hon­eyed tea — some­thing I haven’t done since back in the day. How weird is it that I don’t write any­more. At this point, I can’t tell if it’s a shift in inter­ests, or just a lack of need.

I lose track of the days cause I don’t sleep reg­u­lar hours. Or talk to John. Or play games. I can’t under­stand where the time is going. I won­der if life will ever slow down again, or if this is it, this is the rea­son old peo­ple whine about how quickly the years have passed and how some small food item used to cost some small amount.

man holding baby

This is how I want to be woken up every day.

I haven’t had a chance to recharge my bat­ter­ies in as long as I can remem­ber. The Christmas hol­i­days will be nice, when I’ll actu­ally be tak­ing the time off to her­mi­tize and relax, when I won’t have another video to edit, sub­ject to write, song to learn, or friend to visit. I may even treat myself to Portal 2.

boy playing with Lego

 

The Fall has started like no other. The air is clear and the sun is out, but it’s start­ing to get nippy at night. Every morn­ing I wake up with the pave­ment dark from the dew, and soon I’ll be scrap­ing ice off the car, instead of wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion from the windows.

It’s still not cool enough to leave the win­dows open all day, but the antic­i­pa­tion is enough. There’s some­thing com­fort­ing about a pre­dictable cycle, know­ing that snow will fall and melt, that things will die and grow.

mother holding baby

 

I can finally see the grand scheme, the chap­ters in the book we’re con­stantly writ­ing, where an end­ing means a begin­ning is on the next page.

In a way, it feels like I’m finally here, except I don’t know where here is, I just know it’s exactly where I want to be.

Date  September 29, 2011
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Jealous Jeffrey

3

It’s the first day we haven’t talked, some­thing nei­ther of us expected until some time next month. I think an ounce of Jäger will serve as com­pany instead, and maybe a diges­tif for the healthy salmon (who must have swam 100000km before being caught) that was thanked for din­ner. It burns the stom­ach and the throat, but doesn’t keep me warm.

Sometimes, she teases by call­ing me Jealous Jeffrey. It’s likely she’s gone to bed cause she has to get up early tomor­row, fallen asleep after a pil­sner she grabbed from work. But the mind wan­ders, and I think of her at a Sigma Nu party, being hit on by some frat boy with a popped col­lar and a striped wrist­band around his forearm.

I never worry though, not cause I know she’s mine, but because she does.

Date  September 24, 2011
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small world

2

The drive to Toronto is get­ting eas­ier. It’s my only chance to really lis­ten to albums nowa­days1, not to men­tion the com­fort of see­ing famil­iar towns on the way, like the names of sub­way stops you can’t help but mem­o­rize as a child on the way home from school. And in a way, so many years later, Toronto still feels like home. Getting there is a jour­ney, but the peo­ple always make it worth it.

My patience tends to wear out about a quar­ter way in, when it becomes hard to main­tain a rea­son­able speed. It’s a test of whether I can drive safely to see how far I’ve grown as a person.

I fail every time.

Toronto view

The view from Alex’s down­town apart­ment. You can eas­ily tell Yonge Street apart from how brightly it’s lit.

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  1. Editors in both direc­tions this time, cause any­thing I lis­ten to nowa­days is Antje rec­om­mended. [↑]
Date  August 22, 2011
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the path of least resistance

5

on the path of least resis­tance, you discover:

  • it is impos­si­ble to explain the appeal of dub­step to some­one who’s never heard it
  • every­thing works out in the end
  • moon­walk­ing is eas­ier to do with­out pants on
  • just hugs are com­pletely dif­fer­ent from hugs after kisses
  • no one is ever too old to eat Pocky
  • say­ing we can still be friends is like your mom telling you your dog died and say­ing you can still keep it
  • there is never enough time
  • Dolly will do any­thing for food
Date  August 18, 2011
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homeostasis

9

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Everything is bal­anc­ing itself out. I’ve stopped try­ing to pre­dict or con­trol my cycles of intro­ver­sion and extro­ver­sion, pro­duc­tiv­ity and pro­cras­ti­na­tion. As Oscar Wilde once said: “The only way to get rid of temp­ta­tion is to yield to it”. By doing what I want when I feel like it, every need is met in turn.

Life doesn’t get more com­fort­able than this. It’s been a great summer.

baby eating on high chair

Now on mashed solids. Ruby at 11 months.

I’m glad I got here by myself, with­out the help of a friend, or lover, or wind­fall. It was some­thing I had to do on my own, so I’ll always know I’m strong enough to pick myself up and con­tinue growing.

The only thing that’s really miss­ing now is another cat (or two), but I already blew my kitty bud­get on Leonard’s vet bills. I’m not at the right place for a new adop­tion any­way, and I’ve decided to wait until my major projects are fin­ished (hope­fully some time around the end of the year) before I take on another life.

father and baby

It’s offi­cial; Kyden has the soft­est, pinchi­est cheeks ever at eight months.

I’ve been back from my trip for about a month and a half, but it feels more like a year. I’m so dif­fer­ent now from the per­son I was before I left. I was dying then, but I’m liv­ing now.

The only way I can tell how quickly time is truly pass­ing is in the faces of my friends’ babies. Each time I see them they’re mak­ing new sounds, say­ing new words, more con­scious and coher­ent. I used to envy the care­free inno­cence they have when run­ning about naked, the single-mindedness they pos­sess when engrossed with a new toy, but now I feel like one of them.

Date  August 5, 2011
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the charms of our idle dreary days

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Don’t have much to say lately. Sometimes I get stuck at the title.

I’ve been hold­ing off on start­ing var­i­ous classes cause I’m not quite into my reg­u­lar pace of life. I’m still rid­ing the crests of over-stimulation from my trip, not yet ready to be rou­tinely see­ing peo­ple. Consequently, this means I lose sense of time, weekly classes once being my anchor points for cer­tain days of the week.

Ottawa balanced art sculptures/Sculptures en Pierre Équilibrée

 

I always look for­ward to grey and dreary days, when it’s the per­fect excuse to stay inside and just tin­ker on the guitar.

I never feel lonely any­more. I’m too comfy in the house, too occu­pied with this sense of hedo­nism, too busy pour­ing myself into my projects, too spoiled by life I’m liv­ing, too blessed by the cards I was dealt. Sometimes I end up park­ing my car at a strange angle one could never hope to repli­cate, and I’m sure this is how my neigh­bours can tell I haven’t been out in more than a week.

Hintonburger

The Hintonburger: a six ounce hand­made local beef patty with bacon, cheese, sig­na­ture bar­beque sauce, and fuck yeah.

All I ever wanted was a lit­tle bit of peace. Now that I’ve found it, I’ve stopped think­ing about the future. Right now is good enough.

Date  July 26, 2011
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warm divinity

0

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Music sounds so good. It’s like every­thing has a beat I can dance to.

Sometimes I start writ­ing an entry based on notes from a few weeks ago, but I end up dis­card­ing most of them cause I don’t feel the same way any­more. It’s like I’m con­stantly shed­ding skin in the words I delete.

I tend not to over-think things now. My deci­sions are based on what I want at any spe­cific moment, instead on the future, or the con­se­quences, or what may hap­pen as a result. This regres­sion has been one of the most impor­tant (and dif­fi­cult) things I’ve learned to do. It feels like I’ve been going in the wrong direc­tion for 30 years, but at least I was able to fig­ure that out before much longer. Now I under­stand Picasso when he said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life­time to paint like a child.”

Pat grilling

Pat on his new grill. He’s still fig­ur­ing out the hot spots.

I don’t even prac­tice gui­tar any­more, but I’ll put on a song I’m addicted to and pre­tend I’m play­ing with my favourite singers for hours. It’s not help­ing me improve (which is usu­ally what I enjoy), but by god is it fun.

The weeks lead­ing up to my trip were full-tilt cause I couldn’t stand being by myself. It was never that bad before. I even bought an iPad app that lets me watch ran­dom web­cams from around the world, just so I could have some­thing hap­pen­ing live next to me, even if it was two-thirty in the morn­ing. Usually it was a buf­falo chips restau­rant in Florida with mus­tard table­cloths, a beach resort by the sea in Italy, or an over­head cam of a sushi chef in Tokyo1.

Nowadays, I don’t mind the soli­tude or the com­pany. I’m feel­ing unwound and have set­tled into old habits; not get­ting enough sleep, eat­ing at the wrong times, never going out. The main dif­fer­ence is that I get so much less of John nowa­days, which means I feel so much more alone, but I’m strong enough to be okay with that now.

The days are bright. Like a boy, I find it hard to con­cen­trate on work when the sun fills the house with warm light.

  1. This is how I learn that sushi chefs puree wasabi using only a chef’s knife and a great deal of patience. [↑]
Date  July 9, 2011
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kitty considerations

6

It’s been four months since Leonard died. I remem­ber going to bed that night, con­stantly turn­ing over my pil­low to find a dry spot, sob­bing so much I couldn’t fall asleep.

The necropsy showed that he had a mas­sive liver and kid­ney infec­tion. My vet excused his lan­guage and said, “Shit hap­pens” when I asked (per­haps with a quiver in my voice) what I could have done to pre­vent it.

Soon after, he sent me a card offer­ing his con­do­lences, and said it was a plea­sure deal­ing with some­one who cares so much. It was prob­a­bly the best thing any­one could have done to assuage any feel­ings of guilt. That fact that Leonard had a stub tail with no signs of scar­ring makes me sus­pect that he was the runt of the lit­ter, likely born with a weak con­sti­tu­tion, but that doesn’t stop me from always feel­ing like I could have done more.

He was always so affec­tion­ate, almost to the point of being overly so. Every morn­ing he’d rub his nose on my face until I stirred, which would be extremely aggra­vat­ing if it weren’t one of the most seraphic ways to be woken up.

I remem­ber him sleep­ing with me one bright after­noon. Dolly decided to nes­tle her­self in the crook of my arm under the blan­ket, and Leonard soon joined us, though he decided to curl up on my neck instead. It was the per­fect nap configuration.

I’m still glad I had him, as short as our time was. It sad­dens me most to think that I never got to know what he’d be like as a mature cat, whether he’d keep his play­ful­ness and extro­ver­sion into adult­hood. At the very least, Heather and Sergey, Aaron and Trolley, Darren and John all got to meet him before he died.

Leonard at the Humane Society

I took this pic­ture of his Humane Society pro­file before head­ing over to meet him. They named him, “Elvis”.

I’ve been check­ing the Humane Society web­site for male kit­tens avail­able for adop­tion ever since. I recently found one with the right details and a goofy face too, but I don’t think I’m ready for another cat yet. I’m not sure I could han­dle it if the next one hap­pened to die so sud­denly as well. But I know that soon enough I’ll be itch­ing to adopt again, and that the idea of hav­ing another cat in my life will pre­vail over any worries.

Date  July 5, 2011
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Protected: round my hometown memories are fresh

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Date  July 1, 2011
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Scotland, Day 10: Edinburgh

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We watched Rory McIlroy take the most impres­sive lead in US Open his­tory to win the 2011 title, and when you see these golf super­stars mak­ing sat­is­fy­ingly effort­less shots, you long for the same kind of feel­ing that can only come from some­thing as pri­mal as hit­ting a ball. It’s been years since I held a club in my hand, but I was itch­ing to play and we headed to a dri­ving range, tak­ing it easy on my last day in Scotland.

I’m going home a dif­fer­ent per­son. Not a dras­tic change, but a refine­ment of the growth I’ve had in the last year, and a gal­va­niza­tion of the spirit. This trip has taught me that life is full of hap­pi­ness, and my mem­o­ries of Europe will be filled with the peo­ple and places that have made the last three weeks a rich and won­der­ful experience.

Barney in the garden

Barney likes to roll around in the grass, and some­times he comes back in with pieces of foliage in his fur. He even has a shed with a duvet in it that allows him to sleep com­fort­ably out­side, even when it’s dark and the tem­per­a­ture drops. The back­yard pro­vides a tremen­dous amount of pri­vacy, thanks to all the lush greenery.

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Date  June 22, 2011
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Scotland, Day 9: Edinburgh

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A closer look at Edinburgh, occa­sion­ally viewed from the top of a double-decker bus. The road design often doesn’t make any sense, or fol­low any kind of grid, facts that belie it’s medieval his­tory. Some streets are espe­cially wide, so that horse car­riages could make a full turn in them. Keeping these old tra­di­tions may add to the char­ac­ter of the city, but I ques­tion whether it’s worth the added con­fu­sion and frus­tra­tion when try­ing to navigate.

One of the inter­est­ing things about this city is that it can be divided down the mid­dle into dis­tinct Old Town and New Town sec­tions, where the dif­fer­ence in archi­tec­tural style is very striking.

bagpipe player

There’s a bag­pipe busker on this cor­ner out­side the Princes Mall at all times. I think a few of them share shifts; it must be the most lucra­tive cor­ner in the city.

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Date  June 21, 2011
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Scotland, Day 8: Peebles

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Peebles is a town of about 8000 inhab­i­tants, with the River Tweed run­ning through it. It’s easy to see why it was recently ranked as the best town in Scotland, as it’s full of small town charm, and is less than an hour drive from Edinburgh. You can stand at one end and see the other, where the build­ings abruptly end and the land goes on as hill and grass. It seems like every other store is a char­ity shop where peo­ple can donate their old clothes, toys, board games, and other sundries.

Peebles bridge and church

 

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Date  June 20, 2011
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Scotland, Day 7: Edinburgh

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It’s slow going in the house of mirth. We’ve been explor­ing parts of Scotland every day, so we decided to take a day off to watch acclaimed British sit­coms and movies. I’m so happy here. It finally feels like I’m on vaca­tion, as Dennis likes to remind me when I say I shouldn’t eat any more ice cream. Where else does some­one keep my dishes delight­fully warm in the oven before serv­ing me? Luckily, Dennis is also some­thing of an accom­plished key­board player. Jamming with new peo­ple, learn­ing their unique strengths and the sound they can get from their instru­ments, is always more fun than I can describe.

Funny to think that we’d only met once before at Aaron’s wed­ding five years ago, and kept in touch from across of the pond. Introverts like us never for­get those kinds of con­nec­tions, cause it’s so rare to find a per­son to whom you can eas­ily talk for hours. He lives the same life I have now, the same life I see myself hav­ing many years into the future. Even our cats are alike.

conservatory

Dennis had this con­ser­va­tory built as a room where he could lounge dur­ing the day. The poly­car­bon­ate ceil­ing lets plenty of light through and keeps the space bright and warm and sunny and I’ve decided that I need a room like this.

When the sun sets it can get quite chilly, so then we move to the main room and put the fire on.

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Date  June 19, 2011
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Scotland, Day 6: Inverness to Edinburgh

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We left for home the next morn­ing after a heavy meal at the bed and break­fast, where every­thing was deep fried, includ­ing my toast. Our route was cir­cuitous, planned care­fully by Dennis so I could see as much of the coun­try as possible.

The thing that strikes me most about the Scottish land­scape is that you don’t need to be on top of a moun­tain to get a good view. There’s breath­tak­ing beauty all around, never obscured by sky­scrap­ers or tree­lines. The air is also some of the most pure and fresh you’ll ever get to breathe, yet neu­tral; it doesn’t smell par­tic­u­larly like flow­ers or foliage, it just smells clean.

grazing sheep

 

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Date  June 18, 2011
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Scotland, Day 5: Edinburgh to Inverness

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We took a jour­ney by car through the mid­dle of Scotland along Loch Ness to the city of Inverness1, and stayed at a local bed and break­fast for the night. Inverness is con­sid­ered the Gateway to the Highlands because it’s the most north­ern indus­tri­al­ized city. It has nei­ther the urban con­ve­niences of a mod­ern city or the his­tor­i­cal char­ac­ter of an old one, so remains some­thing of a ho-hum sub­ject in itself, but our short stay was just to break up the drive, and along the way was some of the most breath­tak­ing scenery I’ve ever encountered.

Scotland has long been on the top of my list of places to visit for exactly these types land­scapes, but my favourite things to take pic­tures of are these farm houses under the moun­tains. At the same time, they’re a chal­lenge to pho­to­graph because lit­tle details like sheep and streams of water run­ning through the cracks of moun­tains dis­ap­pear when try­ing to cap­ture the sheer scale of the ranges.

The sun hasn’t been around much. When it rains it’s a fine spray, almost mist-like, but it can be just so dense that you’d get just as wet as if it was com­ing down in “stair rods” as they like to say here. The clouds hang low and shroud the tops of trees and moun­tains, mak­ing you feel like you’re right at the door of heaven.

house under mountains

These houses are so remote and serene, fre­quently with sheep graz­ing all around, and I won­der what life must be like to live among such splendor.

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  1. Meaning “Mouth of the River Ness” in Gaelic. [↑]
Date  June 17, 2011
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