I probably looked like this the whole weekend, cause it was non-stop awesomeness.

The Japanese Village

Last week, Aaron asked me if I wanted to go to The Japanese Village. I thought it was just to hang out, since we hadn’t had a guy’s night in a while, so I didn’t clue in that it was for my birthday until the day of. Aaron told me I could order anything I want, as it was his treat, but I ordered the only thing I ever get when I’m there; the filet mignon cooked medium rare, which I think is the best in the city. It was good to hang out with him and Trolley again.

And, of course, silliness is always present with these guys around.

John in town

John’s been working two straight months, without a weekend off. The last time was when he came to Ottawa to visit. Between all the activities, we only had enough time to watch one movie — American Graffiti — and between the two of us, we could sing every song that came from this film based in the 60s (me covering The Platters, him covering everything else).

I usually only get to see him once a year, so twice in two months was a special treat.

Cranium Party

I’d love to do games nights on a regular basis, but people aren’t available on the same days, so I used my birthday as an excuse to get as many people as possible together for a giant Cranium party. I told them that instead of giving me a present, they should just come to the party. It worked, and we had enough for four teams of three. Some people also brought snacks, like honey mustard pretzels, carrot cupcakes, and freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

It was the highlight of the weekend.

Dim sum with my dad

On Friday, my dad called me to wish me a happy birthday, and told me he was in town for 10 days. We made plans to have dim sum. John came too, which is always interesting to see his reactions to what food is as the token white guy. I had a phoenix talons for the first time¹, because I was feeling adventurous, and I have to say that they weren’t bad, but I didn’t care for them either. They’re too hard to eat, and the sauce wasn’t to my taste. It was strange to see both John and my dad at the same place, and in Ottawa instead of Toronto.

I told my dad he could probably sit and observe one of my Tai Chi classes, so he could see what I do, but he wasn’t interested, and I’ll admit that the indifference hurt a bit. Afterward, I asked John what he thought as a 3rd party observer, and he told me I had a good relationship with my dad. I’ll take his word for it.

I needed this

I needed this weekend so much. To recharge. To stop thinking about things. To get completely wasted. It felt like it was my birthday the whole weekend, and I wondered what I did to deserve it all.

1. It wasn’t the taste, but the look that has always prevented me from trying them. [↑]

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. [↑]

I think god invented porn before he came up with men and then made us so he could blame it on someone else to the wife.

—John’s theory, as we were throwing around ideas for a camera phone that does 360 panoramas, so that callers could get context on who they’re calling

Naturally, this brainstorm session turned to pornography, as it has driven such technology in the past; the lack of pornography on Sony’s Betamax was one of the contributing factors that helped JVC’s VHS win the format war, driving Betamax into extinction. And more recently, Sony, having learned from their mistakes, won the current generation DVD format war with Blu-Ray against Microsoft’s HD-DVD, as movie studio backing, pornography, and games are undoubtedly driving this too.

I want the view. The city lights beneath me, blinking in red and white, to remind me that life still goes on even as we’re unconscious of it.

I want to be in the café with Darren, talking about that which only we could understand about each other.

I want to be looking out the open window of my uncle’s apartment in Hong Kong, to hear the people talking, even through the night. I want to smell the age of the wood, the sterility of the concrete.

I want the strings to be playing just for me. To guide me, through layers of resolution after resolution.

I want to stay on the beachfront. To feel the cool, moist wind blowing through open curtains and doors, completely trusting of the world. To feel the darkness and quiet swallowing me whole.

I want to be rolled up in my sheets with her, pressed together on the couch, naked as we came, as the morning light begins to glow through the blinds.

I want to be downtown in the warmth of summer, with the energy of those around me as if the night would never end.

I want the rituals accorded to those who love and are loved in return.

I want to walk out of the theatre into the deafening night air, my mind racing and humbled from the performance.

I want to ride with John. To speak without thinking. To feel without caring. To confide without worrying.

I want this feeling to last forever.

Back in the summer, John and I went to the Ontario Science Centre. The planetarium was up-and-running, so we got to view the latest Mars landscape pictures in 360 degrees. We also arrived at the Science Arcade just in time to see a girl on the stage with her hand on the big Van de graaff, one of those mystical flagship images you often see in their advertisements.

We hadn’t been there since we were little kids, but the interactive tests and experiments are always fun, even when you’re older.

I’ve had the strangest day. Or week. Or month. Or something.

Not strange in an odd of way, but strange in a confusing way.

It’s like I don’t know what I’m feeling right now. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to feel. Maybe it’s the uncertainty of my life right now that’s doing it. The instability that makes me want to go home and hide in the comfort of my chaise, behind the warm glare of my Macbook Pro.

All day, I think of being at home and finishing my projects. Then I get home and procrastinate — not watching TV, or movies, or reading, or cleaning, but literally sitting around — because all I think about is talking to John.

It’s only after I’m off the phone with him that I feel like I can begin my evening and be productive. I can talk without thinking, without worrying that he may judge me, without feeling like I’m being patronized, without caring whether I’m repeating myself, without fear of offending him, without even having to make sense. Like a small session of therapy, where I need to figure things out for myself, but which can only be done after I’ve put it all out there to someone else. It helps me more than I can understand or explain. Unfortunately, he generally remains unavailable until later in the night, and by the time we’re done, it’s already passed the time I should be in bed.

Even this was only written after he called me on his way home from initiating new pledges at his old fraternity. And it’s already an hour later than when I planned to be asleep.

And when Death From Above¹ came on, all I wanted to do was dance.

1. Back when Iain and I first saw them in concert opening for Billy Talent, they didn’t have the gratuitous “1979″ suffix, as it was before the legal dispute. I refuse to acknowledge them as anything else. [↑]

The time my words dig a hole out of which my best friend must climb.

If you pay special attention at 1:21, you can see John’s face when he subtly shakes his head as if to communicate to me, “YOU ARE MAKING IT WORSE”.

I’m in Toronto right now, at John’s house. He has the cottage for his birthday weekend, so I took two extra days off work to see him. It’s kind of strange how much I’ve been seeing him lately. In the past, we’d go over a year without seeing each other because he was in Windsor for law school and I was in Ottawa without a car. But now that he’s been called to the bar and I’ve obtained the Civic, things have worked out.

We plan on going to the Ontario Science Centre today — something I’ve wanted to do for a while¹ — then driving up to the cottage tonight. We’ll spend two days at the cottage², maybe take a day trip to another town, and drive back on Sunday. Aaron also called me yesterday about his co-ed baby shower on Sunday, which i’m not sure if I’ll be attending yet, since I’ll have driven eight hours that day.

Sunsets and Audiobooks

The drive was absolutely amazing. The weather was perfectly cool, and the sun took its glorious time setting over a few hours. I think the most satisfying part is getting to the section of highway where the 417 splits to the 416, and one can stay in the left lane and accelerate through the turn, leaving all the traffic behind.

I listened to some audio CDs of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking on the way over. The concept is that our first reactions (made within a few seconds) are often intuitively correct, and that even after thinking about something for a long time, we end up going with our gut feelings anyway. We’re made to believe that the more important something is, the longer we should take to make a decision. I’m especially guilty of this³. Wally lent them to me in an effort to help me act faster so I don’t miss any opportunities. Not sure if they’ll help me, but the way it delves into processes of the human psyche is a very interesting listen nonetheless.

Feeding Butterball

Left Dolly lots of food, and I’m hoping she doesn’t eat it all. The reason why I feed her by hand is because she doesn’t have any sense of how much to eat, and balloons up if not controlled. In either case, I expect a lot of poo in the litterbox when I get back.

New Game

I bought John a copy of Assassin’s Creed for his birthday, which thankfully was on his list of games for which to watch. It was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, the same studio who made Prince of Persia, and plays very much the same way. An open-world concept with lots of stealth elements. Certainly a game I could get into. We take turns playing, and it’s made me realize that I haven’t been playing much myself in the last few months.

A Sense of Overstimulation

Life has been somewhat overstimulating lately, and I can’t blame anyone but myself. After spending a day shopping for housewares with Julie last weekend, the house is a big mess, with things scattered over the counters and floors. I haven’t even had a chance to write about the last time I came to Toronto. It seems like life is going faster than I can keep up. I’m just trying to enjoy it, especially when the weather is this beautiful.

After all, life is for the living. This won’t last forever. I get to look forward to some time alone when everything is settled.

1. I don’t think I’ve been since grade 4, so over 18 years ago. [↑]
2. Last time I was there was two years ago [↑]
3. John says that I tend to over analyze things to the point of paralysis. [↑]

I hope John’s wrong. Not because he’s a pessimist, but because he’s a realist. I came to him overflowing with excitement, perhaps with a bright naïveté, only to be brought down in seven words, and the words have been ringing in my ears ever since. I use to think he was tactless and unsupportive. Maybe he is. But he tells the truth, and instead of my hopes, I can only turn to him for this.

That doesn’t change the fact that I’m a fantasist, who wants this right now.

Who needs this right now.

I should really be in bed, but whatever.

Tonight I dug up a letter John sent me a few months ago after he hurt me like never before:

I’ve been reading your blog and calling you all weekend…I know you need attention and I’m sorry I’ve been so neglectful of you that it’s reminded you of the way your parents treated you. Please stop contemplating suicide as a realistic course of action in order to remedy the problem. I love you and would really miss you and at the end of the day in a selfish way I’m scared that I’d hate you if you left me here by myself feeling as guilty as I’d feel if you did it. I think you have fundamentally misordered the priorities we all come hardwired with. To rank the absence of sadness or the presence of happiness or whatever suicide would gain you as goals higher than survival is the first error and then to seek those first goals using the methodology of suicide is the second. You’re a little Chinese man who drinks fruit shakes and is definitely intended to live longer than the genetically predisposed to die in his early 50’s Caucasoid over here. Lets keep it that way shall we, I haven’t got your eulogy polished to nearly the degree you’d want it to be.

At the time, I couldn’t get past the first few sentences because the pain was too fresh. And his words too poignant. Whereas I’m very vocal with my feelings, John is the opposite, and for him to say these things made me feel like my heart would burst. I read it tonight because I wanted to be reminded that I’m important to someone, the way I need to be.

It made me realize that a little part of me still defines myself through others. But I don’t care anymore. I have someone who loves and needs me the way I love and need him. That’s what matters. That’s what makes me feel important, like my life means something.

Knowing this brings me a great deal of comfort.

And that will be enough to get me through.

(I wonder what he’ll say at my eulogy.)

The last three months led up to this night.

After attending Opus 01, I knew I wanted to be a part of this.

John, as a true friend, flew from Toronto to be there for the night. Alex, who was doing a medical internship at a family practice in a nearby city, drove there. Even Pearl also dropped by and I got to meet her.

I was so busy talking with my guests that I didn’t even have time to go into the other rooms to see how the other artists were doing. The house was packed with people again, young and old.

Performances

Jacqueline’s second piece was Sonata in A Minor, by Franz Schubert (unfortunately, her first piece was over ten minutes long, which isn’t allowed on YouTube). I found it to be a rather masculine piece, beginning like a sombre funeral march, leading to a journey of bubbling emotion, so it was mesmerizing to see a girl play it with such conviction. Pay special attention to the burning trill at 5:28, which leads back to the main theme.

Misun told me that when she handed Jacqueline a rose after the performance, it looked like she had run a marathon.

Afterwards, Jacqueline told me after she couldn’t stop looking at my penis through her performance, then quickly corrected herself and said the penis picture, which was hung across from her.

Louise plays the harp by feeling only. She doesn’t have formal any musical training, so she doesn’t write any of her compositions down. It just flows from her fingers, and quite well I might add. As a result, her music is semi-improvised.

John kept telling us how not drunk he was, even though you can clearly seeing him downing glasses of wine in this video.

The after party

When the people left and the doors closed, the real party began for the artists, their guests, and the volunteers. Frédéric and Misun broke out the cold cuts, the fresh and fancy bread, the wine, the cheese and we celebrated a successful night. We had been standing for five hours, so it was time to take a break.

When Dan gave me a reading two years ago, and said that I would be making money off my art within the next 15 years, I never would have believed him.

The rite of passage for the males of our generation — the generation of the metrosexual and hairless pornstar — is getting waxed. As an act of true love for Sheila in enduring the pain, John asked me if I would clean up the hair on his back and arms. I agreed, as long as I could film it.

Waxing John from Jeff Ngan on Vimeo.

I suppose that near the end of the video my sadistic side comes out when I start to laugh, or dare I say, enjoy hearing him scream.

“This is like true friendship”, he says, “Waxing your best friends back when you’ve got a Y-chromosome”.

Sometimes, all I need is a friend to support me.

Even the times when I know I’m stupid or illogical. Especially those times, I just want someone to listen and agree.

I remember Aaron going through a rough patch a couple years ago. He told me he couldn’t let Rob know, because Rob would have jumped in his car and busted open some heads. Aaron confided in me because he needed an objective opinion to work through the situation, whereas Rob may have hurt more than help.

Even though I agreed, I felt like Rob’s ardent personality was a sign of true brotherhood. It doesn’t matter what the logic is, it doesn’t matter what the reasons are, your enemies are his enemies. It’s almost like he’s blinded by his love.

And as much as there are times when Aaron doesn’t tell Rob something, I’m sure there are times when doesn’t tell me things either because he needs an fervent friend. He needs someone who will take his side no matter what. I know I do.

Don’t get me wrong; I have plenty of friends I can go to for an honest opinion. In fact, I go to them more often than not. John’s always there to contradict me and keep me in check, Pat’s there to rationalize the situation, and Aaron’s there to help me find a solution. But every now and then, the unconditional support of an ardent friend gives me strength and courage more than anything else.

Everyone should have such security. To be able to call someone at any time of day who’ll be there in a heartbeat¹. Everyone should have a friend like Rob in their lives.

The ardent friends are just as important as the objective ones.

1. Of course, you have to earn that kind of respect from Rob, because he doesn’t give it to just anyone. [↑]

When Jeff asked me to write about the “Old Boy system” at UCC, the first thing I asked was, “what system”? To me, “system” implies some order or plan or organization, and the alumni of UCC have no special kinship or bond. An “Old Boy system” connotes one that is different from the ones that exist in every graduating class from every school I know of.

I had mentioned to him that one of our classmates is in my year at law school and Jeff wondered aloud whether I would have mentioned it, or noticed it perhaps, if that classmate and I had not gone to UCC. I replied that I would have noticed him notwithstanding our attendance at UCC, as long as we’d been a part of the same high school class as I’m sure most people would.

My perspective on the “system” is that there isn’t one.

I find it interesting that many people seem to think that one exists, and note that the main evidence used to prove their case is the seeming prevalence of UCC alumni in the halls of power in this country. In response, I would point out that the two things, attendance at UCC and later professional success, more likely have the same root cause — money, family connections, or dare I say it, intelligence.

The likelihood of those things being the cause of one’s professional advancement is greater than or equal to the likelihood that some system of quid pro quos or school ties. Ockham’s Razor is a principle that I would bring up in this context to dissuade those who would claim that any system is behind the rise of Old Boys in their occupations, the tenant of that principle being that the simplest explanation is more often than not the accurate one, and in this case which explanation is the simplest and most elegant.

Or is it simpler to say that chaos reigns supreme and individual old boys make their own way in the world, without the kind of help that the phrase “Old Boy system” connotes?

The people singled out in Fitzgerald’s book are just that — singled out. There are, if I’m not mistaken, 71 old boys profiled in the book who graduated from the 1920’s to the 1990’s. In that time more than 5000 boys have graduated. The idea that 1.4% of those graduates are somehow a reliable and representative sample is ludicrous. Such a sample should not be used to draw any conclusions or to make any generalizations.

The Old Boys of ‘99 Series

1. Introduction
2. Another Perspective
3. Seeto and Bunston
4. Mungovan and King
5. Providing Ignorance as Bliss
6. My Perspective