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Magneta Lane and my Cousin Darren

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There’s been a smat­ter­ing of good music lately, but this is the song that haunts me; Love and Greed by Magneta Lane. I added it to my col­lec­tion on the 12th of October, and it’s already in my Top 20 Most Played. By no means is it the best song on the album; it’s just the one that hit me the hard­est.

To hear it as a track by itself is a lit­tle out of con­text. It comes as 7 of 10 off Gambling With God, their lat­est album, and the songs lead­ing up to it charge at a much faster pace. The dra­matic change of tone between the verses and the cho­rus are effec­tive in sub­tly draw­ing you in, against lyrics that should be screamed more than any­thing else.

My favourite part is when Lexi says, “I don’t want recy­cled love / if I did I’d pour wine in a cup / and get all liquored up / and fuck­ing crawl in front of you” when the gui­tar and bass stop, and it’s just Nadia doing the bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum-ba-da-bum under­neath on her toms.

With the way she says fuck­ing with such sac­cha­rine soft­ness, one can’t help but won­der what intense sor­row could have caused this sullen, hon­eyed voice to spit such profanity.

It’s stuff like this that makes rather plain look­ing Lexi Valentine so god­dam attrac­tive, very much in a Karen O kind of way. I guess you could say I have a fas­ci­na­tion with Lexi swear­ing, because she does it so infrequently.

So...

I gave this song to Darren, and he sent me back this reply:

shit this song is on auto-repeat right now.… ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Darren’s the only per­son in the world who sees love the way I do. John knows me in every other way — logic, mind­set, emo­tion, per­son­al­ity, habits, taste — but he doesn’t under­stand my love, which is a big part of me. The only one who under­stands is Darren1 because we share the same quixotic ideas about it. It’s as if we devel­oped this roman­tic atti­tude as a back­lash to how our fathers (broth­ers, who also look the same) raised us with such aloof­ness. This ideal is how we bond.

One time he told me he can’t wait for the day when we’re at his house with our girl­friends, and we’re play­ing Cranium, and we’re just…happy.

This is how I know he’s the only per­son who hears this song the same way too.

  1. Not even my girl­friends have come close to under­stand­ing, aside from Bronwen. [↑]
Date  December 20, 2009
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More Couple Photography

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Kissing in the grass

Thumbnail: By railing
Thumbnail: Butt grab
Thumbnail: Face to face
Thumbnail: Couple in leaves
Thumbnail: Looking back

Cradling

Thumbnail: Embrace
Thumbnail: Girl eyes
Thumbnail: Guy body
Thumbnail: Guy fetal
Thumbnail: Posing

Girl with legs crossed

It’s SO great to work with a cou­ple who appre­ci­ates art…enough to be will­ing to get naked for it.

Date  December 17, 2009
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Protected: Reversal of Fortune

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Date  December 15, 2009
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29 1/12: The Adolescent

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A lit­tle while ago, I stopped shav­ing. I had the flu for about five days, and already had a five-day shadow devel­oped when that began. Then with a lack of social engage­ments, I decided to let it keep grow­ing, lest I lose such a gen­er­ous head start that only began because I was too lazy when I was sick.

I took this pic­ture, and it was more than three weeks with­out touch­ing a razor at that point.

Self portrait at 29 1/12

 

Aaron always keeps a neatly trimmed beard, so I asked him how he takes care of it; which direc­tion to shave, what length to start trim­ming, etc. It was strange to be seek­ing shav­ing advice from some­one at this point in my life. Most of the hair is around the mouth and on chin, with only an embar­rass­ing half-dozen wires sprout­ing ran­domly from my cheeks, so it required a touch of maintenance.

For a long time, I didn’t know what to think of it, whether I liked it or not. Aaron said to me, “Sometimes, you don’t need to know”, and I went with that for a while. Maybe time would give me an answer.

Soon after, I started shav­ing again. It wasn’t get­ting any thicker, and I didn’t think I could pull it off.

I turn 30 in 11 months, and I still can’t grow a beard.

The Turning 30 Series

Date  December 13, 2009
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Relationship Drama

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Whenever I’m catch­ing up with my mar­ried friends, it feels like I’m the only one talk­ing. I felt really self-centered, until I real­ized I’m the only one with any updates. Aside from some con­struc­tion or new fur­ni­ture, they don’t have any news, much less, drama.

I won­der if I’ll ever be set­tled like them. If my life will ever be drama-free, with­out all the insta­bil­ity in my rela­tion­ships, both good and bad.

Date  December 7, 2009
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Unwitting Puppet

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If it hasn’t been painfully obvi­ous, I’ve fallen off the wagon. I’ve been think­ing about her again.

But it isn’t my fault.

You see, she came by my work and gave me a box of home­made short­bread cook­ies in a cute lit­tle box (as well as some for my other co-workers). I would nor­mally say that it’s a nice ges­ture, but in this case, it was a cruel and painful reminder of what I had lost. But that pain sub­sided as I ate them (admit­tedly, in one sit­ting) and I decided to for­give her for that one. It’s hard to stay angry when the sugar and but­ter hits your brain.

Then she walked by at a con­cert, and squeezed my arm as she was pass­ing by. I didn’t even know she was there until it hap­pened. Then she did it again.

This whole time, I’ve been try­ing to get over things by stay­ing away, and I was doing pretty well, until the touch1 of her hand fanned the ashes of pas­sion that were left smol­der­ing in my chest, revers­ing sev­eral weeks of emo­tional recovery.

I told my friends I knew I was being self­ish, because I’m the weaker one for not being able to han­dle it when she’s dat­ing some­one else2. But they tell me it’s not self­ish, it’s self preser­va­tion. That I’m just tak­ing care of myself, and she’s the one being self­ish and incon­sid­er­ate, because she’s not respect­ing my wishes to keep a dis­tance. I’ve since stopped feel­ing guilty for stay­ing away.

Still, I’m left with this won­der­ing. What do her actions mean? What is she try­ing to com­mu­ni­cate? What does she want?

I can only guess that she wants to remain friends, but there’s this stu­pid hope in the back of my mind that it meant some­thing more. Maybe it’s a habit; I lived with that hope for more than a year as we fell into a rela­tion­ship at arms length.

I’ve con­sid­ered going back to her and ask­ing for some clo­sure — some real clo­sure — but I don’t think even she can explain her actions at this point. And if she could, her answer would prob­a­bly be the same as it’s always been.

But I really don’t know for sure because she’s cho­sen not to stay away, against my wishes, and my heart feels like it’s hang­ing by a thread. I doubt she’s doing it on pur­pose, but yet again, she gets to fig­ure things out at the expense of my emo­tional sta­bil­ity. After all, it’s hard me to move on when mixed sig­nals are hold­ing me back, like an open, gap­ing wound con­stantly being picked.

  1. This is the same sort of caress that can melt one’s resolve when com­ing from a per­son for whom one has a weak­ness. Humbert Humbert refers to this at the end of Lolita when he says to her, “Don’t touch me. I’ll die if you touch me.” [↑]
  2. Then again, at least I know enough to stay away, instead of stalk­ing and going psy­cho. [↑]
Date  November 27, 2009
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Surviving Mooncake

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A few weeks ago, I received a pack­age wrapped in brown paper at work. It took me a few moments before I rec­og­nized the return address; from the woman who birthed me (I pre­fer not to use the term “mom” any­more). I didn’t want to open it, because my first sus­pi­cion was that it was a box of ears. Why ears? Well, I’ve seen Oldboy, and let’s just say that in the movie, the main char­ac­ter does some­thing sim­i­lar as an act of penance to some­one he wronged.

This woman can also have a twisted sense of logic, and it wouldn’t me sur­prised if she cut off her ears, along with some­one else’s, to show that she was try­ing to make up for the way she treated me by pun­ish­ing her­self, along with another poor, unfor­tu­nate soul who donated their ears to the cause. But it was heavy, and curios­ity fre­quently gets the best of me, so I opened it, and dis­cov­ered it was a box of moon­cakes. Four moon­cakes, to be pre­cise, and the expen­sive kind with the dou­ble yolk. Then I real­ized it was the Mid-Autumn Festival, so this kind of del­i­cacy wasn’t so out-of-the-ordinary.

My next thought was that they were laced with arsenic. Who knows what this woman is think­ing; every now and then she goes fuck­ing crazy. I told my office-mate, who said, “They aren’t poi­soned! Your mom’s just try­ing to reach out to you.” I didn’t believe her, so she said she’d take one home and feed it to her fam­ily to prove it to me.

Unfortunately, my co-worker is only in the office once a week. So there I was at home on the week­end, with these deli­cious, though poten­tially poi­soned, moon­cakes on my counter, wait­ing to see my co-worker in six days so she could tell me if she started devel­op­ing any signs renal failure.

Part of me was also think­ing I should just throw them out. By eat­ing them, I was accept­ing the ges­ture by this woman — in other words, for­giv­ing her — which was def­i­nitely not the case.

The thing is, I’ve always had a weak­ness for moon­cake. Those heavy, deli­cious lit­tle pas­tries that are only made more spe­cial by the fact that they’re only avail­able twice a year (the other time being Chinese New Year).

So I told myself she was just repay­ing part of the debt she caused from men­tal anguish, and there went my pride. I ate just eat a lit­tle piece — an eighth of one cake — and waited a few hours to see if I started expe­ri­enc­ing vom­it­ing, nau­sea, or seizures. Then one piece led to another, and by the time I knew it, half a cake was gone.

Mooncake

This was sup­posed to be a pic­ture of a box of moon­cakes, but this is all I have left now.

I’m still alive.

Date  November 20, 2009
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29: The Child

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I turn 30 in 12 months.

But it doesn’t feel like I’m turn­ing 29 today. More like I’m turn­ing a-year-away-from-30. 29 has always been so incon­se­quen­tial. One step on a stair­case before set­ting foot on a landing.

Self portrait at 29

 

The thing is, I’m not sure what’s sup­posed to hap­pen when hit 30. I expect some­thing big, but I don’t know what exactly. Like I have yet to open my eyes to some­thing. Maybe because 30 has always been adult ter­ri­tory in my mind, not 18.

So if I still feel like I haven’t grown up yet, is some­thing going to hap­pen in this year? Something to make me feel like an adult by the time November 13 hits in 2010?

I turn 30 in 12 months, and I don’t know what to expect.

The Turning 30 Series

Date  November 13, 2009
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Two Messages

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Only a few peo­ple know I have a fas­ci­na­tion with voices, dic­tion, and accents. It’s for this rea­son that I tend to save my voice mails. Well, that and the fact that they can be an inter­est­ing time stamp, because what’s said in them can offer such a tan­gen­tial view of your life. Here are two good ones in the past few weeks.

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The first is John, and now that he’s sin­gle, he’s avail­able1 on Saturday nights. I hap­pen to be both these things as well, though him much more recently, so hav­ing him approach me about my avail­abil­ity is awesome.

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The sec­ond is Heather, who has one of the nicest voices I’ve ever heard. It’s always soft and so sweet, with a slight tinge of raspy that gives it a bit of sex­i­ness. Though, as a very shy and mod­est per­son, she would prob­a­bly blush and smile if you ever told her.

  1. This term between us usu­ally refers to talk­ing on the phone, play­ing a game, and watch­ing a few videos. [↑]
Date  November 11, 2009
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Wingman

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A good wing­man says “no prob­lem bro” when you ask him to go with you, and takes it as an oppor­tu­nity to hang out.

He lis­tens and com­mis­er­ates and backs you up on your feel­ings when you’re catch­ing him up.

He even pays for din­ner when he’s the one doing you a favour.

He keeps a look­out in the sea of peo­ple so he can be aware of the sit­u­a­tion and warn you.

He stands fac­ing the door so you can have your back to it when talk­ing to him, and won’t be caught off guard.

He teases you about the cute ones, just like the good old days, when you went drink­ing in places too loud to talk.

He leads when you’re too ner­vous or self-conscious to do any­thing, and he fol­lows with­out ques­tion when you take action.

He has a great time, and thanks you for the night.

Date  November 9, 2009
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Publishing Necessity

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John asked me, “Why? Why do you write these things and post them, when it clearly shows that you’re not over things?”.

I told him I’d rather post them now than in a year from now, because they have to come out sooner or later. This has always been nec­es­sary, even if it’s a lit­tle embar­rass­ing at times, and I’ve never cared who reads, and who judges me. It’s my cathar­sis, my way of deal­ing with what can’t be changed. Sometimes, peo­ple find relief in know­ing they’re not alone in hav­ing painful emo­tions, in mak­ing mis­takes, or expe­ri­enc­ing unre­quited love. I don’t write for them, but if they can take some­thing away from my words, then it helps me know I’m not alone as well.

Date  November 4, 2009
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What I Mean To Say

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Usually, when peo­ple ask me why it was so spe­cial, I say “When it worked, it worked really well”.

What I really mean to say is,

“It was the way her kisses would travel down my spine. The way she wore her hair dif­fer­ently every time I saw her. The way her cheeks would round so endear­ingly when she truly laughed. The way she could look beau­ti­ful wear­ing dresses, or jeans, or my old paja­mas. The way the tan­ta­liz­ing golden down trav­eled along her lower back. The way her body felt against mine when I pulled her close.

It was because she brought me green tea bub­ble bath when I was home sick for three days with strep throat. Cause she loved try­ing new things, like taro dumplings, and ha gow and sui mai and tofu flower, and bub­ble tea. Cause she would buy me ben­gal spice tea, and hand creams, and soaps, and flow­ers for no rea­son in particular.

It was because she liked tak­ing pho­tos of me too. Cause she would remem­ber the things I wanted when men­tion­ing them in pass­ing so she could look them up and buy them for me later. Cause she truly appre­ci­ated the gifts that I gave her. Cause she spent so long prepar­ing for my birth­day last year, even though she knows I don’t cel­e­brate it. Cause she helped me seek ther­apy for my anx­i­ety issues. Cause she came with me to con­certs when I didn’t want to go alone. Cause she loved The Mars Volta and Shane Watt as much as I do.

It was the way she could cre­ate so many beau­ti­ful things with her hands, using paint or chalk or toner or lead or metal or choco­late. The way she sup­ported me and my pho­tog­ra­phy. The way we would take turns choos­ing movies and watched them together, even though our tastes were so dif­fer­ent. The way she got along with my friends and loved my cat.

It was the way I would fall in love with her over and over again every day.

In her, I had found the per­son I was look­ing for my whole life, and she held me cap­tive every moment we were together.”

But I never do.

Date  October 30, 2009
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Sex In Between

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One time, she sud­denly asked me, “Have you had sex with any­one else?”, which she used to imply as between the last time and what we were about to do. It was a valid ques­tion, since we’re both sen­si­tive to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of Cupid’s itch and Venus’s curse.

I was insulted that she asked, because at the time I felt like sex with some­one else would have been cheat­ing on her. As uncom­mit­ted as the rela­tion­ship was, she still had my heart, and con­se­quently, other parts of my body as well. I’m also not like that, and it takes a lot before I decide to be inti­mate with some­one. But at the same time, I was flat­tered that she thought I would or could, a lit­tle boost to my ego that is rarely ruled by machismo or testos­terone.

“I haven’t either”, she reas­sured, which was some­thing I nat­u­rally assumed of my mod­est muse, so it was of lit­tle com­fort to me.

Date  October 26, 2009
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The Dawning: Rachel CD Release Concert

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When Rachel Beausoleil started work­ing on her lat­est album, she approached me about design­ing the art­work. We sat down and threw around some ideas before she even started record­ing, but didn’t come up with any­thing solid because I didn’t have a sound to go on. All I knew was that it was a med­ley of songs, not like her last album where the songs fol­lowed a theme.

One day I came home to find a record­ing of the album in my mail­box, yet to be mas­tered. She named the album after the epony­mous track, The Dawning, which is a jazz arrange­ment of the famous song Aquarius, a per­sonal anthem of hers.

The Dawning artwork front

She gave me her notes soon after, so I put on the album and gave it a good lis­ten, feel­ing a cer­tain clar­ity from her sound. It made me think about dawn, and space, and sun­rises, and hot colours, so I incor­po­rated those ele­ments when lay­ing out the text, as well as some bokeh to give an off-focus glimmer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Date  October 24, 2009
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Waiting For A White Christmas

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I can’t wait until the Christmas hol­i­days. I’ll have a chance to work on projects I’ve put on hold to make time for paid work. A chance to breathe. A chance to do noth­ing. Some seri­ous me time, inside my warm house, watch­ing a movie while wrapped in blan­kets. Lazy maple bacon every day, her­mi­tiz­ing. I may even decide to go home and visit peo­ple I always mean to see when I’m in Toronto, but never have a chance to.

I’m busy with side-work until the new year, and cur­rently not accept­ing new work. On the social end, I’ve come to a point where I’m not only booked, but double-booked, and find myself hav­ing to pri­or­i­tize plans and decide what I’d rather do. It’s been great for keep­ing my brain busy, and whereas I’d nor­mally feel over­stim­u­lated, I’m now rev­el­ing in all these awe­some expe­ri­ences and peo­ple I get to meet.

This doesn’t feel like a tran­si­tion phase, as the tran­si­tion, or what­ever the hell it is, already hap­pened weeks ago. I was at fork in the road, and now that I’ve taken the first steps, I find myself on a one-way path through a tun­nel with­out any exits, won­der­ing what’s on the other end.

Date  October 22, 2009
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