It hasn’t stopped pouring since I woke up. I’m traveling through the city in my favourite hoodie. Thinking about you and your delicate wrists. The photos I took of you smiling, always looking away. Wondering what it must be like in your world. Wondering if we’ll ever meet again. Wondering what you meant when you told me it’s hard to be alone when you’re told you’re growing old.

I write this so I won’t have to write about you again.

Perhaps in a simpler world things would have worked out differently, and you would have given me a second thought.

But I have no tears in me.

The sky weeps instead.

I was on my way to work one day, walking down a hill, when I noticed that there was a rather large snail on the ground. He was about an inch and a half long, his shell a delightful contrast of pink and pastel hues to dark brown banding. I wanted to take a picture, but I didn’t have something to carry him to work (where I have an infinity board and white box), so I decided I’d just grab my camera on break and bring him there.

Of course, my break was in a couple hours, and I was praying that he’d still be there when I went outside. I grabbed the camera and tripod and ran up the hill, looking for a small shell casting a shadow on the concrete.

I found him crushed, splayed out in strands of mucus, most likely stepped on by some careless person. Snails can’t live without their shells, as the calcium carbonate structures hold their internal organs. I took a few pictures of the tragic scene anyway.

When I got home that night, I happened to look at the snaps in quick succession and noticed that parts of him were still moving.

I took a few frames and overlayed them to make this Flash animation, where you can see his foot wriggling, as well as some indistinguishable entrails that remind me of liver. It’s so sad to think that he was left out to die a slow death with his innards exposed.

I would have named him Shelly.

While Joel and his family were on extended vacation, I took care of their cat, Sprocket.

He used to be 25 pounds (from the previous owner who overfed him) but slimmed down to around 14 or 15, I’d say. You can tell he used to be much bigger; if you run your hand down the length of his body, you can feel the bones on his frame sticking out prominently, and there’s a fair amount of extra skin hanging from the belly.

He never got along with Dolly. For the entire time he was with me, which was just under two months, they got in about two dozen fights. Every now and then, there would be a tremendous cacophony of hissing, growling, meowing, and running from one end of the house to the other. I’d say that Sprocket was more often the aggressor, but Dolly started her share of fights. Even though she still has her back claws (Sprocket is completely de-clawed), he had a large weight and size advantage. His bite is also very strong (which I found out from feeding him treats¹), I’m guessing from all the practice he got from eating.

It made me re-think getting a second cat while Dolly’s still alive. Two cats can fill a house nicely, but she didn’t get along with him at all. Since they don’t know how old Sprocket is, the aggressiveness may simply be due to his age, but I’m not sure I want to take the chance.

In any case, I can tell he enjoyed the change of pace, which was living in a house with two parents, two kids, and two dogs, to just me and a cat. He’s a sucker for treats, meowing quietly as a “reminder” to give him one. One funny thing I noticed is that he seemed to have harder-than-average paws. When pacing around on the kitchen tiles before being fed, it would sound like a horse trot.

Sprocket also loves attention. No matter what I was doing — cooking breakfast, playing games upstairs, writing downstairs — he would follow me around. It did make my Tai Chi practice more difficult, as he’d spread out on the open carpet and roll around under my feet.

He loves to sleep on blankets, and would always fall asleep on my sheets when I was under them, most commonly near the feet. He got along especially well with Bronwen. When she stayed the night, he would keep her up by constantly walking over her body, looking for a warm place to nestle.

I’ll certainly miss him. Hopefully, he’ll remember me the next time I go over to Joel’s house.

1. I don’t think he was ever fed by hand; he would always nip my fingers when giving him a treat. Dolly is the opposite. She very delicately moves towards the treat with her mouth, and snatches the treat with her tongue. [↑]

 

 

 

 

A few portraits of Gosia. She’s a first-generation Canadian, her parents being immigrants from Poland. One can tell she has a very European look.

 

 

These were taken with the sun coming from behind because Gosia was squinting too much otherwise. I tried my flash as a fill-in to balance the brightness of the background, which helped increased saturation in the foreground. I love the colours in these shots, they’re so dreamy.

 

Another addition to my body shot series. Gosia’s a competitive volleyball player, so she has awesome abs (not to mention killer curves).

 

 

 

A lot of guys are somewhat blinded by Gosia’s beautiful big eyes and curvy figure; they’re don’t realize that she’s quite a strong, intelligent person with a good head on her shoulders. The idea of these shots was to cover up part of her face, not through the framing of the picture, but using objects to help the viewer see past her physical beauty.

…won me a dollar at the races.