I filled the void you left with the rest of my life

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And that’s why I spend so much time with peo­ple now, why it’s a lit­tle eas­ier to bend each pitch, and why I don’t mind hazy night dri­ves through pur­ple sky and deer warn­ings as long as Mogwai is on. Everything I do is an attempt to be whole again, cause I still think of you with me at every din­ner, movie, episode, nap, ride, gath­er­ing, and concert.

But surely you can’t be the same per­son I see in these pho­tos taken so long ago. You’d be a lit­tle wiser from the years, a lit­tle stronger from the expe­ri­ences, almost cer­tainly sport­ing a new hair­cut, but I bet your heart would always be the same. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to let go. I real­ized that no mat­ter what hap­pens, regard­less of how peo­ple grow and change, I’d always love that heart. That’s the only rea­son I under­stand what you meant by always have a weak­ness.

I filled the void you left with the rest of my life, but it’s still hard to be whole with­out you.

There's someone I want you to meet.

He’s a great guy who looks par­tic­u­larly nice in a skinny tie. His deep, smokey eyes seem to slay every woman he meets, and even the ones he hasn’t yet. There’s a strap­ping mas­culin­ity that you like, car­ried in the angles of his face, but a gen­tle smile reveals his true personality.

He’s intel­li­gent enough to chal­lenge that mind of yours, but so down-to-earth that you’d never feel inad­e­quate. He’s con­stantly cre­ative and a musi­cal genius, and I know you’d appre­ci­ate his work as much as he’d appre­ci­ate yours, even if they’re in dif­fer­ent medi­ums. He can let loose and have a great time, but he’s respon­si­ble enough to know when to stop. He’s con­fi­dent, but mod­est. Funny with­out being crude or clown­ish. Thoughtful and kind. Generous with his time, his thoughts, his pos­ses­sions, and his life. He’s the total pack­age, but most impor­tant of all, I know he’d make you happy.

And while I’ve always been unbear­ably jeal­ous when I think of you with any­one else (and maybe I chose him cause I like to think he reminds me of myself), he’s the only guy I wouldn’t mind you being with if it can’t be me, cause it would be such a waste otherwise.

he was never the same

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I have a feel­ing this day will be the new divid­ing line in my life, some­thing that was pre­vi­ously pre and post-kiss, and now also a sep­a­ra­tion between who I reached out to and who I didn’t call. And, oddly enough, this song will for­ever remind me of what hap­pened, some Canadian indie-rock hit from ’94 I had on repeat the whole day.

Things are going to be dif­fer­ent now, even though nothing’s changed. I just wish I knew what that meant.

missed connection

(I was going through some old e-mails when I found this missed con­nec­tion post I wrote years ago. Aside from get­ting in touch with the per­son I was writ­ing to, one per­son replied, “I am not her… but I read this page hop­ing that one day some­one would post some­thing this nice about me after a ran­dom smile exchanged on a street cor­ner. Well Done.” Don’t we all.)

I was walk­ing north on O’Connor around 5pm yes­ter­day, lost in a thought, when I turned the cor­ner and saw you look­ing at me.

You gave me an unin­hib­ited smile, the likes of which seemed to con­vey a strange famil­iar­ity. Like we had seen each other at an office party but were never for­mally intro­duced, so we knew of each other’s exis­tence but were too shy to be the first one to say any­thing, and rel­e­gated our com­mu­ni­ca­tion to giv­ing each other quick glances when pass­ing each other in the hall.

It made me think of this line that Emilio Estevez says in St. Elmo’s Fire:

There are sev­eral quin­tes­sen­tial moments in a man’s life: los­ing his vir­gin­ity, get­ting mar­ried, becom­ing a father, and hav­ing the right girl smile at you.

Okay, so maybe Joel Schumacher got the entire con­cept of St. Elmo’s fire wrong in the movie, and sure, Andie MacDowell’s role was as chal­leng­ing as putting but­ter on bread, but she was per­fect for it. She had a fresh face with the right amount of charm and mys­tery to be the love inter­est of the guy who played the pop­u­lar jock in The Breakfast Club, and for a moment yes­ter­day, YOU WERE THAT GIRL. If that makes me the crazy, obsessed waiter-cum-law stu­dent then so be it. At least I wasn’t the wild frat boy with a bas­tard son who couldn’t hold his life together that Rob Lowe won the Razzie for, right?

You were the girl who defined one of those four quin­tes­sen­tial moments, and it came at the right time, as I had just spent so much time curs­ing Ottawa for hav­ing such incon­sid­er­ate dri­vers and inac­ces­si­ble down­town park­ing. I was the guy you smiled at who prob­a­bly lives a lit­tle too vic­ar­i­ously through 80s coming-of-age movies cause I was never cool enough to have any “real” prob­lems, and your smile stopped me in my tracks. By the time I gained the clar­ity to turn around, all I could see was you walk­ing away, in a long black coat, black hat, with red hair.

All I need now is to lose my vir­gin­ity, get mar­ried, and become a father. Maybe you could help me with those too.

wrapped in chords

Context. It’s 19°C in the house. I keep an elec­tric heat­ing pad under my hoodie, the gui­tar is slung around my body, and my head­phones are con­nected to the com­puter. I’m wrapped in chords, with a win­ter scene per­pet­u­ally out­side my window.

I know this won’t last for­ever, so I’m indulging in these lit­tle rit­u­als. Trying to enjoy all the lit­tle things I started tak­ing for granted, like car rides at night when the roads are clear and the car is warm. I’ve lost myself in the shuf­fle. I know I need to recen­tre myself, but I’m wait­ing for things to set­tle down first.

There’s so much I don’t say to my friends. Not because I don’t trust them, but because my news never feels impor­tant enough to bring up. It’s stuff they stopped talk­ing about years ago, cause they’ve moved on from this part of their lives. Well I’m still here, hop­ing everything’s going to work out in the end.

Magic: The Gathering prize

Martial Coup: Put X 1/1 white Soldier crea­ture tokens onto the bat­tle­field. If X is 5 or more, destroy all other crea­tures, and win a box, a booster, a pack of nice lands.

I real­ized that I don’t spend that much time with my core group any­more, but I do hang out with a revolv­ing group of friends. It seems like there’s always another per­son to catch up with, another meal to share, another night of gam­ing with the guys. It’s keep­ing me occu­pied, for which I’m thank­ful lately.

Otherwise, I’ve been think­ing a lit­tle bit about the past and a lot about the future. Trying to pic­ture where I’m going to end up, but it’s never some­thing I can fig­ure out.

deconstructing songs

I’ve been decon­struct­ing songs, try­ing to fig­ure out what mag­i­cal com­bi­na­tion of pitches and tim­bres and rhythms can cre­ate such an intense response in my body. Every song is a puz­zle when you try to fit the com­po­si­tion into what a per­son can do with­out stu­dio edit­ing or a band.

On my quest to unlock such a puz­zle, I dis­cov­ered Final Fantasy per­form­ing a Bloc Party cover of This Modern Love, what is now my favourite song of all time1, hav­ing dethroned Blonde Redhead’s Elephant Woman of the hon­our it held for many years. It strips me bare by lay­ers and lay­ers, and even though the lyrics found rel­e­vance in my life before I decided that dis­tance would keep me sane, it’s only in recent months that it’s gone from being a song I never skip to a song I always play.

To be able to see how Owen Pallett repro­duces it with only a vio­lin, a loop pedal, and his char­ac­ter­is­ti­cally frail voice is a par­tic­u­lar treat. Not only because he can draw the same inten­sity in me as in the orig­i­nal ver­sion, but because you can see how it’s done; what part he keeps to present the lis­tener with the essence of the song, what he’s changed to fit the tools he uses, and even where he takes his breaths. It’s like find­ing an ele­gant solu­tion for a puz­zle that has per­plexed you for years.

But I’ve yet to sit down and attempt any seri­ous cov­ers of my own cause I’m still wait­ing for my musi­cal knowl­edge and gui­tar abil­ity to catch up with what I want to accom­plish. I’ve been learn­ing clas­si­cal pieces for a bet­ter foun­da­tion, and in that pur­suit I came across this par­tic­u­lar ver­sion of La Catedral.

I enjoy clas­si­cal music (though I’m really picky) cause it can evoke a spe­cific emo­tion in me, but most pieces cater to only one emo­tion at a time, or there’s a lot of devel­op­ment before the part I really like. La Catedral, on the other hand, has it all, from sor­row to ela­tion, and every bit of it is bliss. I’m con­vinced that this is how the old Paraguayan gui­tarists rocked out with their cocks out, and it amazes me how some­one could write such heavy emo­tion when there were no metal idols, no amp dis­tor­tion, no scream­ing back then.

I’d say that for any­one to fully under­stand me, they’d have to under­stand this song too. It rep­re­sents every­thing I love about music and emo­tion and sex, cause it’s all in this song, and only Denis Azabagić plays it the way it was meant to be played2. When watch­ing this for the first time, I remem­ber think­ing that I would make love to this man, this man who looks like some guy’s uncle, because he plays like he’s touch­ing every nerve of my heart.

I love the way he moves with his gui­tar, the way he cra­dles the body, the way he purses his lips or widens his eyes with every swelling of pas­sion. To be able to play like him is is exactly why I started tak­ing up gui­tar; I want to feel as good as those who lose them­selves to the music, and learn­ing this piece has become another thing I hope to do before I die.

  1. As a per­son who lis­tens to almost any genre but is still obses­sively selec­tive with music, say­ing that I have a sin­gle favourite song is a big deal. []
  2. I never liked this song until I heard him per­form it, the last 45 sec­onds in par­tic­u­lar, with his orgas­mic fin­ish. Every other clas­si­cal gui­tarist uses pauses that break up the flow of what are sup­posed to be relent­less six­teenth notes, to the point where it feels like the entire song is ruined. []

nothing's burning

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I feel so dis­con­nected from the world lately. It’s not like I don’t have friends who care so much that they make me feel unwor­thy of the atten­tion. I just don’t relate to any­one around me. People with their lives on rails when I feel as uncer­tain as ever. It’s like I haven’t joined their world yet, this world of sta­bil­ity and reg­u­lar­ity, where every­thing just falls into place.

shadows outside a pub

Do pixie cuts ever make up for smoker’s hands?

I watch the movies that used to stir the depths of my emo­tions, lis­ten to the songs that would grab my heart and clench to the beat in hopes that I’ll feel some­thing more than this. Every night, every snow­fall, every pho­to­graph is telling me that some­thing needs to change, and I’m left try­ing to fig­ure out what or when or how it’s going to happen.

this modern love breaks me

My vice-of-the-moment is instant decaf cof­fee with loads of sugar and French vanilla non-dairy creamer; a chem­i­cal sludge I have every morn­ing like dessert for break­fast. That and long show­ers (and maybe a bit of the sauce every now and then) are the only things I indulge in nowadays.

It’s a sign that instinct has taken me over. I do what I want, and I’m start­ing to sus­pect that you’re an adult when that also hap­pens to be the right thing. Not when you hit an arbi­trary age, or have kids, or a career, or a house. It’s when you start to take con­trol because part of grow­ing up is under­stand­ing that you’re respon­si­ble for the results in your life. When you dis­cover that there’s no room in this place for old-school roman­tics, so you’ve gotta play the game. When you lose your inno­cence after accept­ing that the world isn’t the way you thought it was or the way you wanted it to be.

Still, it’s unset­tling to be ven­tur­ing ahead amidst such uncer­tainty. I’ve learned that you can’t wait for every­thing to be per­fect in your life before tak­ing a risk, or you’ll be wait­ing for­ever. There will always be cycles of stag­nancy and change, calm and storm, hurt­ing and heal­ing. I don’t mind the changes, but part of me resents the inno­cence lost. Quixotism has always been a part of me, some­thing that’s defined so many of my thoughts and pas­sions and work. It’s like I’ve lost a part of myself — and a part I’ve always liked — to mes­sages unre­turned and the days in between.

is this it

I learned that the mea­sure of a man is his abil­ity to stir-fry bok choi hearts.

That High Fidelity is the new (500) Days of Summer.

That it’s nice to be needed.

That I still won­der if I’m forgotten.

That it’s not so much that I don’t have any­thing to write about, but noth­ing ever seems impor­tant enough to put down on paper nowadays.

That I say oh my god a lot.

That food poi­son­ing is like a lax­a­tive for both ends.

That I’m allowed to miss her.

That it’s okay to think oth­ers are cute too.

That I’m doing the whole Swingers thing with Lisa, where she’s try­ing to con­vince me I’m a big fuck­ing bear.

That I can’t read signals.

That it doesn’t mat­ter whether or not you’re invited, as long as you’re happy where you are.

suddenly everything has changed

I know you can’t save me from what’s about to hap­pen, but I’m tired of being strong for myself. Tired of not hav­ing you in my life. Tired of try­ing to not think about you. And as ter­ri­fy­ing as the future is now, you know I’m not a hyp­ocrite, and I know it wouldn’t be fair to either of us.

Sometimes I take the bus, walk our paths, sit in our old haunts. Hoping to catch you at a dis­tance, so I can see how you’re wear­ing your hair and know you’re okay. Strangers on a train, hop­ing in my head that you’d sit and talk to me so we can laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all.

Sometimes I find these pic­tures of you I don’t remem­ber tak­ing, in glasses I don’t remem­ber you ever wear­ing, in places I don’t rec­og­nize. A strange gap in my mind in an oth­er­wise vivid set of expe­ri­ences, and I won­der if on that day our bod­ies ever touched.

And while I’m sure some would blame these thoughts on the sea­son or the breakup, the sim­ple truth is I never real­ized how alone I was until the phone rang today, and I haven’t taken a breath since.

Elizabeth and Jane promo video

I was very excited to be work­ing with Liz again when approached me to shoot a promo video for her pho­tog­ra­phy busi­ness. Since she does engage­ments, wed­dings, and pet por­traits, we decided to film all three types of sessions.

Liz lists some of her favourite things as her hubby, her pups1, her shoes, and her Apple prod­ucts, so I included lit­tle bits of each to give it a per­sonal touch. I also kept the grad­ing crisp and clean with colours that pop out of the screen to match Liz’s style of vibrant pho­tog­ra­phy, of which I’m a huge fan. My main goal, how­ever, was show how fun it is to be one of her sub­jects because she has a per­pet­ual smile and bub­bly per­son­al­ity that puts any­one at ease.

  1. She’s Ottawa’s own dog-whisperer, and it may be safe to say that she loves dogs as much as I love cats, per­haps even a lit­tle more. []

remainder

Don’t try to make life a math­e­mat­ics prob­lem with your­self in the cen­ter and every­thing com­ing out equal.

—Anatole

Sometimes it feels like I’m being pun­ished for a crime I never committed.

the things we carry

I can’t fig­ure out why I’m so moody lately. Maybe it’s been too long since I smelled the wood of my gui­tar. Maybe it’s the fresh Autumn colours that tend to mag­nify my emo­tions. Maybe I’m feel­ing over­worked, over­stim­u­lated, and too rarely under­stood. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had a moment to myself in what feels like weeks, with so many feel­ings of lone­li­ness amongst so many people.

Autumn stream

 

I always think of exile in times like this, and in par­tic­u­lar, a stanza from Yevgeniy Onegin:

From all that to the heart is dear
then did I tear my heart away;
to every­one a stranger, tied by noth­ing,
I thought; lib­erty and peace
would serve instead of happiness.

Luckily, I’ve been read­ing The Poisonwood Bible, which reminds me that the only prob­lems I have are first-world prob­lems, and that I’m rich in ways many will never be.

I find it amaz­ing, the immen­sity of it, how any sin­gle per­son can be respon­si­ble for a tome of such rich sto­ry­telling, obser­va­tion, and wit. It’s the only book I’ve picked up in years, and I only started read­ing to get into her head as much as pos­si­ble (and piqued by my curios­ity on how she could describe a story of the Belgian Congo as sexy). Unsurprisingly, her favourite char­ac­ter is the strong, faith­ful, war­rior daugh­ter. Mine is like me too; the dark, brood­ing, intel­lec­tual child, dizy­gotic twin to hers. It makes me won­der if lik­ing one char­ac­ter over all oth­ers is too often an exer­cise in vanity.

In the end, Onegin real­izes he was wrong about exile, that he couldn’t fill him­self with empti­ness to replace the sad­ness, some­thing he only fig­ures out when he finds some­one worth lov­ing. That’s what’s pulling me back too, keep­ing me grounded amongst those dark moments of untem­pered emo­tion. I carry the image of her smile with me, the only thing as dis­tin­guished on her face as her Spanish eyes, and the rea­son I call her Cheeks from the way the flesh pulls up to round her face. I’ve stud­ied this smile for so long that I can see it every time I close my eyes, and with that, I carry a strength of my own too.

Byron

Kitties are impos­si­ble to resist when you see them in every other viral video doing some­thing hilar­i­ous or clever or just plain cute, and my plan to wait until life set­tled down a bit before adopt­ing another one was as dif­fi­cult as the inten­tions were noble.

I’ve had Byron for about a month now, and he’s already been a great com­pan­ion. He hasn’t warmed up to sleep­ing with me at night, but he fre­quently sleeps in my lap, and fol­lows me around the house, even going so far as to lie on the bath­mat to watch me when­ever I’m mak­ing a nice BM. He also rarely stops mov­ing, which makes him espe­cially dif­fi­cult to pho­to­graph. Like Dolly, he can be quite a vocal cat, and will meow repeat­edly when he knows he’s about to be fed or if I call his name.

cat on a couch

 

I can tell he’s already grown in the short time I’ve had him. It’s always fun to see how all the parts of kit­ties develop at dif­fer­ent rates; right now he has big ears and a full tail, though his big mitts are more likely due to his breed. His face is also quite mature, though it isn’t par­tic­u­larly strik­ing or unique.

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Wu Wei 2

Wu Wei, my free WordPress theme, is cur­rently the 5th most pop­u­lar theme on WordPress.com, with over 550,000 blogs using it at the moment (not includ­ing ones being self-hosted), and it’s become so suc­cess­ful that the admin­is­tra­tors have made it one of the default themes for new sign-ups. By far the most com­mon sup­port ques­tion I get is why the WordPress.com ver­sion isn’t avail­able for WordPress.org users (some have even offered to pay for an update), so I’m very pleased to announce the release of ver­sion 2 for self-hosted blogs.

The theme has been updated to take advan­tage of new fea­tures that came with WordPress 3.x, such as cus­tom header and cus­tom back­ground APIs, cus­tom menu man­age­ment, as well as var­i­ous under-the-hood fixes and improve­ments. Tags and com­ments have also been included on the front page, to bring bet­ter stan­dard­iza­tion across WordPress.com and WordPress.org versions.

People have asked me why I don’t charge for such a theme, see­ing as how I’ve poured a tremen­dous amount of time and energy into some­thing used by so many peo­ple. I can only say that Wu Wei has brought me much luck since its release, and thanks to it’s pop­u­lar­ity, I’ve met many great peo­ple1, received new design work, and even had a chance to visit Britain — things I don’t think would have been pos­si­ble if Wu Wei was a paid theme.

  1. There was even a case of an old ex-girlfriend find­ing me when she decided use Wu Wei before she dis­cov­ered who made it. []