until tomorrow

The days go on con­tin­u­ously, mea­sured in beats-per-minute. Winter’s here in all it’s bright glory, but the sun sets a lit­tle later every day, mark­ing the change of sea­sons. It’s the only way for me to keep track of the pass­ing time.

So many days are spent alone, yet I don’t feel lonely. The only prob­lem with iso­la­tion is that it lets me spend too much time with my own thoughts. This, com­bined with my intro­verted ten­den­cies (which means my stim­u­la­tion comes from mem­o­ries), makes me feel like I’m trapped in the past. I sup­pose it’s not all bad, but it cer­tainly does make it harder for me to heal.

Bronwen puts on makeup

 

I don’t know what to write. There isn’t the same strug­gle or need to vent. I find myself sit­ting and star­ing at a blank screen for hours at a time. It’s not like I feel the need to say some­thing for the sake of it. There are still thoughts and ideas that linger, things to get off my chest, but they’re either too too sim­ple to men­tion, or too com­plex to put down.

It’s strange to see this path laid out before me. I could wan­der off and explore new things, but I’m still too comfortable.

Things don’t change, but I don’t think I mind so much anymore.

It's shameless, the way we flirt

Bronwen finally get­ting a cell phone (with an unlim­ited text mes­sag­ing plan) has been the source of much amusement.


  • Bronwen: Aww, I think I’ve been really depressed lately, I’ve been find­ing it hard to find a rea­son to get up lately, try­ing to pull myseld out of it
  • Me: Awww. Too bad you’re ditch­ing me this week­end or we could hang out.
  • Bronwen: Oh please, my mom, dad and grandma (pos­si­bly aunt) would be very annoyed with me if I had ditched all of them, I had plans to go home first!!!
  • Me: It was a joke you bitch
  • Bronwen: Jeeeeeze, not a morn­ing person…mine was a joke as well crazy
  • Me: You’re not a per­son person.
  • Me: You will turn into a crazy cat lady who tries to trap me into hav­ing a baby so I’ll have to send you alimony cheques.
  • Me: I SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU. YOURE NOT GETTING MY SPERM.
  • Me: Are you cry­ing in the mid­dle of class now?

Pacts

Bronwen and I agreed to a mar­riage pact, where we would marry each other if we weren’t in a rela­tion­ship by a cer­tain age. The thing is, she’s six years younger than me, so we decided that her expi­ra­tion date is 35, and mine 41, because it’s eas­ier for men to date/marry than women, at an older age.

Note how I didn’t say “easy”. Heaven knows I had a hard enough time with dat­ing in my teens. And twen­ties. And prob­a­bly 30s.

According to her, we also have a sui­cide pact, even though I have no rec­ol­lec­tion of this. The only rea­son I can think of agree­ing to that is if large parts of the world were destroyed by mete­ors, lead­ing to the col­lapse of the eco­nomic sys­tem, cre­at­ing anar­chy, and reduc­ing every­one to hunter-gatherers.

Bronwen and I are most cer­tainly not hunter-gatherers, and we’d prob­a­bly suf­fer unbear­ably just try­ing to sur­vive, or be killed soon after because we’re too naive or com­pas­sion­ate for a dog-eat-dog world. The thing is, if that hap­pened I’d try to join forces with Pat and Jen, because they always have every­thing together1. So maybe if they were also killed by this cos­mic hail­storm, then it would still be an option.

  1. Pat’s the one who believes that at least one per­son should be in con­trol in every group at all times, and that he is this per­son. The only time he was ever ine­bri­ated was for his bach­e­lor party. []

Impromptu Dinner

Me and Bronwen

Thumbnail: Me and Bronwen
Thumbnail: Shane and Blaze
Thumbnail: Thanks for Pocky
Thumbnail: Boys watch TV
Thumbnail: Shane and Frederic

Mixing bowl

Bbq pork dinner

I Wanna Be A Trailer Park Boy

Trailer park us

Cause Trailer Park Boys never give up.

Cause Trailer Park Boys aren’t stuck in the rat race.

Cause Trailer Park Boys smoke weed, drink, and eat cheese­burg­ers all day.

Cause Trailer Park Boys love kit­ties as much as I do.

Cause Trailer Park Boys always dream, hope, believe in some­thing better.

Hugging Etiquette

She hugged me yes­ter­day. I thought I was over her, but maybe I’m still smit­ten. Physical con­tact does funny things to the mind.

I don’t under­stand why girls are so into hug­ging. Often, I’ll go for a hand­shake, and as if it doesn’t take, they’ll lean in to hug after­ward. A girl once asked if she could hug me after I explained to her my pro­ce­dure for check­ing a cat before adop­tion. Figure that one out.

The funny thing is that most girls aren’t very good hug­gers. They give limp hugs — more of a press­ing of the arms to the body — and it bugs the crap out of me. It’s like get­ting a soft hand­shake, also referred to as the “limp noo­dle”.

Bronwen’s an excep­tion. I always give and get a bear hug from her when I see her and when she leaves. Sometimes we fight for arm posi­tion­ing, because we both pre­fer to have the arms lower than the other. I like to have my arms around a girls’ waist, whereas she likes to have her arms sur­rounded, so she feels protected.

The two Louise’s are/were also good at hug­ging. Nice and firm, with­out being too clingy. Maybe it’s a Louise thing.

It just makes me won­der; if girls are so into hug­ging, why aren’t they bet­ter at it?

Letting Go of Bronwen

Bronwen started dat­ing another guy.

It’s funny, my first reac­tion is to think another guy, as if we’re still dat­ing our­selves. I sup­pose our rela­tion­ship has never been con­ven­tional, but that’s what makes it so spe­cial. We still spend our week­ends together. We still talk on the phone for hours with­out actu­ally talk­ing. We’re close enough that I’m com­pletely com­fort­able around her, enough for me to let my guard to go down.

It’s made me real­ize how pro­tec­tive I still am of her, how upset I’ll be if she gets hurt. I think of all the things I could have done bet­ter, and hope this guy can treat her bet­ter than I did.

I have all these mixed feel­ings about it though. I’m wor­ried that I may lose my friend, but I’m glad there’s some­one to make her happy. In the end, I know I can’t be self­ish. Letting go of her the first time was hard enough.

Doing it again doesn’t make it any easier.

Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend: Bronwen

I love you too much baby
For you to be with me
I love you too much baby
I gotta set you free

—Shea Seger, I Love You Too Much

You were the clos­est I’ve ever come to per­fect in a girl­friend. In fact, you raised the bar. Now I know there are girls out there who are funny, intel­li­gent, open-minded, car­ing, sane, and I’ll always be look­ing for the same now.

Making love to you was fun because you’re so damn cute. I loved to look into your eyes, though I wish you’d be able to keep yours open.

In so many ways, we worked. My love of dark choco­late and your love of milk choco­late meant that we’d never have a prob­lem fin­ish­ing off an assorted box. You’re so easy-going, while I’m so uptight. All the lit­tle things, like puz­zle pieces made of clay.

Even though it’s been months since we’ve bro­ken up, our video is still by far the most played item on my iTunes playlist. It’s such a beat­i­ful mem­ory, and I’ll always cher­ish it.

I still miss those notes you used to leave me about what you did dur­ing the day and when you’d be back. Those times we’d take the bus, and you’d rest your head on my shoul­der. Those times we’d wres­tle and fall asleep in a pile, right there, from exhaustion.

I miss all these things, but the fact is that it didn’t feel right, and it wouldn’t be fair to either of us to keep going. You deserve to be with some­one bet­ter. Someone who will fully appre­ci­ate you and the things you do.

I know I never said it in our rela­tion­ship, but I loved you.

And I still do.

The Letter To An Ex-Girlfriend series

  1. Introduction
  2. Ashley
  3. Michele
  4. Christie
  5. Jackie
  6. Louise
  7. Bronwen

The Many Faces of Bronwen

Bronwen is my orig­i­nal muse. We hap­pened to meet shortly after I got my SLR cam­era, and ever since, she’s my pri­mary model when doing pho­to­graphic tests and experiments.

These were taken over the course of about a year. From before we started dat­ing to passed the break-up.

Every angle cap­tures a dif­fer­ent side of someone.

Thumbnail: Dark and brooding
Thumbnail: The hoodie attitude.
Thumbnail: Against the wall
Thumbnail: Classy cleavage
Thumbnail: Cute mode
Thumbnail: Emo.
Thumbnail: The trustworthy companion look.
Thumbnail: The innocent look
Thumbnail: Bronwen revolution.
Thumbnail: The porcelain doll look.
Thumbnail: The cozy look.
Thumbnail: Trusting

Looking back on these reminds me of how much I miss it when she had red hair, which she dyed for me (but didn’t like to admit it). Too bad I can’t con­vince her now to do it again.

The Beginning To The End

This was the week­end we first met.

The first time we kissed. The first time we held each other. The first time we slept with arms entwined, bod­ies bare and buried under the covers.

It was before the snow melted on the verge of spring, when I would open the win­dows to dry the sweat from our skin.

I put on a song that made me cry, because she said that it turned her on, and with the tears welling up in my lids, we stared into each oth­ers’ eyes.

From the moment we touched, there was never any awk­ward­ness. Only a com­plete trust, a com­fort­ing famil­iar­ity, as if we’d known each other for years, a gen­tle nuz­zle of the nose from my baby-faced doll.

And now it’s over.

Someone who saw this video sent me this very touch­ing let­ter about her story of rape and recovery.

Summer Housemate

Thumbnail: Sleepy Bronwen

This is what I wake up to every day.

What I enclose in arm and leg at night, or press my back against when I roll over.

They say it takes weeks to get used to sleep­ing with some­one (or with­out some­one, when the rela­tion­ship is over), but for me, the tran­si­tion is seam­less. All it took was an extra pil­low, and some space accom­mo­da­tion for two stuffed ani­mals, and a braided shred of old blankie.

Every day, I wake up between two and five in the morn­ing. It’s an afflic­tion I’ve had for years, some­thing that wouldn’t be so bad if I could fall asleep again, but my mind always races, keep­ing me up for another hour or two. When she’s next to me though, my thoughts remains calm.

This body keeps me warm, rested, and pacified.

So what will I do when she’s gone?

Spring Thaw

I can feel myself get­ting run-down, a vic­tim of my own active­ness. There’s barely enough time to do any­thing dur­ing the day now, and week­ends leave me with lit­tle more than time to cook. Last week I went home with Bronwen to meet the par­ents, and hav­ing caught another red-eye, was jet-lagged the whole time.

Pita comes over to cel­e­brate his new career this week­end, with John vis­it­ing at the end of his exams the next. The week­end after is help­ing Pat move into his new place, then Aaron, then a break, then Nick’s wed­ding, which brings me to the end of May.

I was plan­ning on hav­ing a bar­be­cue at my house, but real­ized that I have nei­ther the time nor the money. Bronny’s also mov­ing in for the sum­mer next week, which will def­i­nitely cut down on travel time, but increase my photo explo­ration pro­por­tion­ately as we do things around town.

A Quiet St. Patty's Among Others

Thumbnail: Old film Canon
Thumbnail: Lindsay's place
Thumbnail: Darren
Thumbnail: Lindsay
Thumbnail: Incense
Thumbnail: Digsby the cat
Thumbnail: Candelabra
Thumbnail: Scrabble game
Thumbnail: The look

Darren and I had orig­i­nally planned on dri­ving up together, but the tim­ing didn’t work out, so we arrived when we could and played it by ear. Bronny was the point of my visit, while Darren was there to see Lindsay. After a dri­ving from pub to pub, each one full of St. Patty’s day partiers adorned with green horns and hold­ing green pints, the four of us ended up at a small restau­rant, and even­tu­ally at Lindsay’s house.

It was Bronny who made the most inter­est­ing com­ment to me after­wards. “Darren needs to be with someone…deep”, she said, “Someone intel­lec­tual”. I still won­der what made her think so. What did we talk about? As far as I could remem­ber, there was no par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion, just a bunch of us hang­ing out.

But she was right.

A Girl's Room

Thumbnail: Green Ikea hanger
Thumbnail: Belts and bracelets
Thumbnail: Dream journal
Thumbnail: Sextrology book
Thumbnail: Valentine's card
Thumbnail: Sweetums

Some of this movie comes from, you know, from me, sure. But it’s not, you know, I’m never going to be able to make a movie that doesn’t, you know. Even if I’m mak­ing a movie about the turn of the cen­tury, I think you’re gonna, it’s always going to be per­sonal. It’s just in the detailed stuff; the horses in Sheryl Lynn’s bed­room, with the rib­bons on the wall, and you got sis­ters or you got a girl­friend who loves to ride horses and all this stuff. And those lit­tle details that you remem­ber, I’ve been lov­ing to put those in a movie.

I think, you know what, when I grew up in the val­ley, I lived there, I was really embar­rassed for the longest time that that’s where I lived and that’s where I grew up, cause I knew I wanted to make movies. And I would look back to my favourite direc­tors, and think, okay, there’s Howard Hawks, and boy, he served in the war. And there’s Ernst Lubich who escaped Germany, you know, and all these won­der­ful sort of things going on in our lives that you could, you’re sup­posed to bring to a movie, you know. But, I don’t have shit to bring, I was like, I’m from the fuck­ing val­ley, you know. And, I was really embar­rassed about that for a long time, I guess, until one day I just woke up and said, “Well, I’m from the val­ley, and I remem­ber things like lit­tle plas­tic horses and the blue rib­bon on the wall with the fuck­ing girl­friend, and you know, I guess that’s what I have to make movies about.”

—Paul Thomas Anderson, Boogie Nights director’s commentary

A girl and her things.

Memories of burn­ing can­dles, sham­poo scents. The colours and the smells give me a total over­whelm­ing sense of poignant nostalgia.

Admittedly, it’s been a while since I’ve been in a real girls room, and being there, in the mid­dle of all the dainty things and the dif­fer­ent fab­rics, I didn’t know what was more embar­rass­ing: the fact that I felt like I was 17 again, or the real­iza­tion of how much I’ve missed it.

And this is all I can write about.

Greyhound To Her

Thumbnail: Greyhound decal
Thumbnail: Toronto city
Thumbnail: Bronwen on bed

They call it the red-eye for a rea­son, and although I’m expect­ing to sleep through most of the ride, I’m not pre­pared to wake up every half hour. The bus was sup­posed to be half-full, being 12:30 on a Friday morn­ing, but when I arrive at the sta­tion, the line stretches across the hall­way, dash­ing my hopes of a win­dow seat. The guy beside me watches movies on his lap­top, while the old man across the aisle works on an assort­ment of papers with the only light in the bus on. He sits alone, away from the win­dow, a big fuck you to any­one who may want a seat. It’s his light that keeps me up.

The grey­hound is sup­posed to stand for speed, named after the fastest breed of dog used in dog rac­ing, but for me it stands for free­dom. The cost is a stranger sit­ting next to you, a cou­ple hours of leg cramps, and a lit­tle over a hun­dred dollars.

The lay­over is an hour and a half. As I sit in the ter­mi­nal, I think of how close my par­ents are. I haven’t seen them since Christmas, and even though they’re an 45 minute drive away, I won’t be see­ing them this time around.

This bus brings me to her.