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a horse is not a home

6

Toronto may be my mis­tress, but I still flirt with the idea of mak­ing her my wife. Wondering if I can escape the life and the mem­o­ries I have in Ottawa. I make the trip a few times a year, and some­times it feels like it’s more often than I see my friends here. If I still call Toronto home, maybe it’s time I should make it my home again. But I know it’s a dras­tic step for the sake of closure.

Christmas gathering

 

Sweet and creamy…Simon’s two great­est alco­holic adversaries.

It’s strange to have too many peo­ple to see and never enough time. Growing up as a socially awk­ward guy, it’s a prob­lem I never imag­ined I’d ever have. There hasn’t even been enough time for myself, although I sup­pose that’s the way I wanted it. I just don’t feel safe when I’m by myself nowadays.

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Date  December 18, 2011
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Categories  Daily Life Photos Video

Crystal + Jae-In Wedding Day

13

Shot with a Canon 5D Mk II, mostly using my new 70–200mm f/2.8 IS II. Be sure to watch in high def­i­n­i­tion, and let the video load com­pletely before play­ing because the pac­ing and momen­tum are crucial.

Editing took about 25 hours, and I’m super happy with the way it turned out. There were so many great moments, and the footage has a won­der­fully vis­ceral feel to it. The most chal­leng­ing part of post-processing was colour bal­anc­ing all the footage, which I had to do shot-by-shot. When you’re film­ing for an entire day, you tend to get a huge vari­ety of light sources and temperatures.

A note about the tea cer­e­monies. The first one was the Chinese ver­sion, which allows rel­a­tives to hand red pock­ets or jew­el­ery (usu­ally gold and jade) to the new cou­ple. The sec­ond one was Korean, named Paebaek, and is much more elab­o­rate. Relatives line up for a for­mal bow, tea serv­ing, then throw a hand­ful of dates (rep­re­sent­ing girls) and chest­nuts (rep­re­sent­ing boys) to be caught by the bride and groom with a blan­ket. The num­ber of dates and chest­nuts caught sig­ni­fies how many chil­dren they’ll have. No sur­prise that grandpa only grabbed chestnuts.

Then the bride is given one of the dates they caught, and the groom has to take a bite out of it from her mouth. The per­son who ends up with the big­ger piece is the one who will wear the pants (which is why you see the bride tena­ciously try­ing to keep the big­ger piece for her­self). At the end, the groom has to carry his mother and mother-in-law around the cer­e­mony table, then carry his new bride out of the hall.

Also, this:

dad at wedding

 

Date  October 5, 2010
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Categories  Random Video

29 8/12: The Son

0

There’s no rev­e­la­tion more star­tling than the fact that your dad is cooler than you.

This is espe­cially true of my own father, who isn’t just cool for an old guy, he’s cool period. As a teenager, I remem­ber him wear­ing a leather bomber jacket, and learn­ing to ride a pur­ple Kawasaki Ninja sport bike which he even­tu­ally traded in for a sil­ver Porsche.

When I was even younger, my friends would tell me he looked like a secret agent. One time he came to help me move out of res­i­dence, and his jeans had wider cuffs than mine (and back then I loved wear­ing wide-leg khakis). I can’t remem­ber a time when he didn’t wear some­thing by Lacoste, Polo, or Tommy, and even though he may dress far younger than his age, he can still pull it off.

Now he’s a man mov­ing closer to his 60s, dri­ving a Mercedes and a BMW, with what seems to have a coterie of women whose com­mon inter­est is him. He watches pop­u­lar movies, prac­tices singing, and dances on a reg­u­lar basis. Even my grandma once told me that peo­ple like him because he’s the fun one to be around.

Self portrait at 29 8/12

 

This is all very dif­fer­ent from me; a shy, intro­verted, awk­ward per­son whose idea of a good time gen­er­ally involves being in front of a computer.

Still, with all these dif­fer­ences, I know I’m his son. Just a chip off the old block, with the same work ethics, the same per­fec­tion­ist ten­den­cies, the same neu­rotic tendencies.

We get grumpy when we’re hun­gry. We hate feel­ing sweaty and some­times have to shower twice in a day. We make the same silly jokes when we’re around new peo­ple. We dec­o­rated our houses exclu­sively with mod­ern, min­i­mal­ist fur­ni­ture before we knew what each other’s houses looked like. And as I grow older, I’ve also started devel­op­ing the same night owl habits, care­free atti­tude, insom­nia, and diges­tion problems.

I turn 30 in four months, and I’m becom­ing my father’s son.

The Turning 30 Series

Date  July 13, 2010
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Categories  Random Thoughts

Magneta Lane and my Cousin Darren

0

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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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Categories  Random

Birthday Weekend

13

At The Japanese Village

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

Chilling on the couch

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

John and dad at dim sum

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. [↑]
Date  November 16, 2009
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Categories  Daily Life Photos Video

Pretentious with a Dash of Random

5

Hi, how’s it going.

When talk­ing about hair­cuts, I always say, “My styl­ist”. As soon as this comes out of my mouth, I won­der if this makes me sound snooty and pre­ten­tious. Most peo­ple seem to say, “hair­dresser”, which I imag­ine is the same thing, with the for­mer being a way to charge an extra $15–30 for a hair­cut. But the only rea­son why I say “styl­ist” is because that’s what the recep­tion­ists say (“…and what styl­ist would you like?”) when book­ing appoint­ments. But styl­ists are so dif­fer­ent from bar­bers, in my expe­ri­ence. And my styl­ist has gone for courses in the US, so I’m think­ing this actu­ally gives him the title.

I also say “cha­cun à son goût” when the phrase is appro­pri­ate. I won­der if this makes me sound pre­ten­tious too. The only rea­son why I say that instead of “each to his own taste” is because I learned the expres­sion first in grade 8 French class. There was a pic­ture of King Henry say­ing, “cha­cun a MON gout!”, as if he was famous for being in demand­ing king. Ever since, I relate the phrase to the French. Sometimes, I imag­ine I’m in late Imperial Russia, when French was con­sid­ered the hall­mark of a civ­i­lized soci­ety, so peo­ple threw in French phrases to impress peo­ple or fit in. I imag­ine myself say­ing, “Ho ho, mon cher, je méprise les femmes pour ne pas les aimer car autrement la vie serait un mélo­drame trop ridicule”, while throw­ing my head back with dainty laugh.

Sometimes my nights are spent like this:
Night spent

My favourite pas­time at the moment is play­ing Flight Control while lis­ten­ing to music. I have a sort of run­ning com­pe­ti­tion going with Pat (high score 99) and John (high score 67). So far I’ve been able to best their scores at 292, but now I’m try­ing to pad the vic­tory even more, because Pat and John have as much of a healthy com­pet­i­tive streak as I do, and actu­ally spend some extra effort try­ing to beat each other. So some­times I’ll just sit down and put some music on and play. I’ve also tried cook­ing while play­ing, but my foods ends up get­ting burnt. There has also been some stand-up com­edy lis­ten­ing while I play, but laugh­ter always gets in the way of fine motor controls.

When I was younger, my par­ents owned a con­ve­nience store. It got held up a cou­ple of times, late at night when my dad was work­ing. He never talked about it, not because it was shock­ing, but because he didn’t care. Sometimes, I won­der how my dad felt with a gun pointed at him. One time they caught the three or four guys involved in one hold-up, and my dad had to go to court to tes­tify. Somehow my dad han­dled it, but going through all of this would prob­a­bly freak me out.

Date  September 23, 2009
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Categories  Photos Random

See You In Toronto

4

Street

I’m so glad that Toronto remains a place where I can go to get away. There are places to stay, an end­less cycle of friends or acquain­tances to visit, and some­one else takes the wheel and drives.

It’s amaz­ing to see how much Toronto has changed. How cer­tain streets down­town have turned into trendy, expen­sive shop­ping dis­tricts, a Canadian ver­sion of Rodeo Drive, and a far cry from the run-down roads I would visit every lunch in high school by rollerblade and sub­way to buy Magic cards and Warhammer figures.

MindBender loves you

After Bill Clinton’s speech at the CNE, there was a brief ques­tion and answer period. The host asked him, “What do you like most about Toronto?”, adding that Torontonians seem to have a sort of self-deprecating humour1. After mak­ing a diplo­matic com­ment on the Aboriginal art as being his favourite thing, Clinton said, “You folks can make fun of your­self, but peo­ple would kill to live a soci­ety like this. You should be very proud.” I had to agree.

Dim sum

Before leav­ing, I had dim sum with my dad, and we caught up on each oth­ers lives a lit­tle bit. He sounded pretty happy when I called to ask him if he wanted to go.

I bought a pair of wind­shield wipers but didn’t replace them, bring­ing them with me to his house instead, hop­ing he could show me how to install them. I could just as eas­ily have read the car man­ual, but I wanted some­thing to share with him. Maybe now I can catch up on these father-son things that I seemed to have missed in my childhood.

  1. I sup­pose you have to, with how well the Leafs have been doing in recent years. [↑]
Date  September 7, 2009
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

Finding Love For Two Bachelors

7

The fact that my dad and I are the eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors in the fam­ily means we get a lot of advice around the din­ner table. They bring up avail­able women. Friends of friends, daugh­ters of dance part­ners, or this-person-I-know.

It’s strange to come upon the sud­den real­iza­tion that my dad and I are at the same point in life. Does that make me old, or him young?

They ask us our tastes: Looks? Personality? Older or younger? I say, “Money”, but they know me well enough to know I’m jok­ing. A joke to hide my answer, for to reveal myself in this way is to expose a cer­tain vul­ner­a­bil­ity. So they side­step the ques­tion and ask me if I’m after any­one, think­ing that if I describe a per­son I’m inter­ested in, they’ll be able to fig­ure out what I’m look­ing for. It’s com­pli­cated, I think to myself, so only reply with a “No”. They ask me if there’s any­one after me. “No”. That’s even more complicated.

Last week, my grand­mother asked me how old I was. “28”, I told her. “Already! You’re almost 30. It’s time for you to get mar­ried.” She says if I stay in Hong Kong all the girls will be after me because I have some kind of gen­tle­man scholar look. My dad too; he’s the man’s man, who’s always been fun and pop­u­lar. And we have Canadian pass­ports. Apparently, we’re in demand.

But they also want to make sure we’re not get­ting involved with the wrong type of women. Someone who will take our money once we’re mar­ried, or force alimony once they trap us with chil­dren. They tell us to keep an eye on each other. I say that my dad doesn’t need my approval if he wants to get mar­ried, but I don’t need his approval either. So they tell us to bring our girls to meet them, to be sure they’re okay.

I won­der; is love this easy for other peo­ple? Something oth­ers can con­trol, when I can’t con­trol it myself?

Date  March 22, 2009
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Categories  Random

Typical Of My Dad

4

(This hap­pened in Chinese.)

Around the din­ner table, my aunt men­tioned that it was her daughter’s birth­day, and that it hap­pened to be Friday the 13th. My dad said to me, “Isn’t your birth­day on the 13th too?”

“I don’t know”, I said rather loud and sarcastically.

My dad was in trou­ble. All the fam­ily around us real­ized that he doesn’t know my birth­day. So he said a date (and year, as if recit­ing a his­tor­i­cal event) with a hint of uncer­tainty in his voice.

I don’t think he was ever more relieved than when I told him he was right. Not because he got the right date, but because he didn’t seem like such a bad father to every­one else.

Date  March 15, 2009
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Categories  Random

Father-Son Bonding

4

I called my dad on his birth­day this week. After the divorce I would never call him, spe­cial occa­sion or not, sim­ply because I needed to dis­tance myself from the sit­u­a­tion. He did call me on mine last year though, which reestab­lishes a sort of prece­dence and rit­ual, and he actu­ally thanked me for the call.

We made the usual small talk, about work and home.

Mercedes Benz SLK 55 AMG 2006

He told me he bought a car: a 2006 Mercedes Benz SLK 55 AMG hard-top con­vert­ible with 18″ rims and 7-speed-automatic trans­mis­sion. He’s going to keep the Beemer for win­ter dri­ving. It filled my heart with quiet joy when he said I could drive it the next time I vis­ited him. Not so much because he was let­ting me (for I was always allowed to drive the Sportline 300CE while liv­ing at home), but because I could tell in his voice that he wanted me to try it.

I asked him if there’s any his­tory of col­orec­tal can­cer in the fam­ily, which the doc­tor wanted to know at my last appoint­ment, to which my dad answered, thank­fully, no. He shared with me his own health con­cerns, the med­ical terms of which he only knows in Chinese. These are things I avoid ask­ing about when I visit him, as he pops some pills from a bot­tle kept with the dishes in the kitchen, and I real­ize that I’m learn­ing more about my dad than ever. It’s not so much out of a need for pri­vacy or avoid­ance of embar­rass­ment, but sim­ply out of con­ve­nience, as these top­ics would never get brought up.

It’s strange to bond with him in this way, only after so many years of leav­ing home.

I remem­ber him try­ing to teach me pho­tog­ra­phy when I was younger, but he soon lost inter­est, in both pho­tog­ra­phy and me1. Maybe it’s the dis­tance that makes us appre­ci­ate each other more, and it wouldn’t be the same if we lived in the same city.

In a way, I’m glad to have the rela­tion­ship now, and I’m able to for­get that I’ve never had it for most of my life.

  1. As such, all my pho­tog­ra­phy is self-taught, aside from one trick used to zoom a lens towards the sub­ject so that the edges are blurred that he showed me at the Statue of Liberty. [↑]
Date  February 16, 2009
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Categories  Random

Conversations With My Father

6

We’re stand­ing in his garage in our paja­mas, with win­ter coats on. After a short drive around the block to bring the oil up to tem­per­a­ture, he pulls out the bright orange dip­stick to teach me how to check the level.

Even though he’s never seen what’s under this hood before, he knows where every­thing is. Every noz­zle for every fluid, every con­nec­tor to every part. A sixth sense that all dads seem to have, like when a steak is cooked medium rare, and when the TV is just big enough.

This is the first time we’ve ever done some­thing like this. A strange sort of bond­ing I rarely had in my childhood.

Inside, I’m show­ing him how to use Photoshop, to take the wrin­kles out of his friend’s faces. Anything helps at this age, I suppose.

In my heart, I wish my dad had shown more inter­est in my pho­tog­ra­phy. I wish he wanted one of the prints I brought, maybe to show other peo­ple and say that he was proud of me. But he didn’t. And I say noth­ing because it’s one of those things that shouldn’t have to be said.

He keeps bring­ing up his dance part­ner. The per­son who called him to make sure I arrived safely from the drive. He wears two new ear­rings in pierc­ings that weren’t there the last time I saw him, a gift from her, and I won­der if “dance part­ner” is his euphemism for “mommy”.

I’m too scared to ask.

There’s no rea­son for me to stay more than a night, because there’s noth­ing more to be said.

Date  November 23, 2008
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Categories  Daily Life

Papa Was A Rolling Stone

9

My dad called. After 14 months with­out contact.

Not that I wasn’t expect­ing it. He e-mailed me two weeks ago (flagged with the lit­tle red excla­ma­tion point to note that it was impor­tant), telling me that he was hav­ing a party on New Years. “Can you come and join us?”, it said.

“Us?”

Is he dat­ing now, I won­dered. Married?

I sat on this e-mail, unsure of what to say. A lit­tle while before this, Merv struck up a con­ver­sa­tion with me about fish­ing. I told him I used to go to this one fish­ing spot at a lift-lock in Peterborough with my dad, and it made me won­der what I would say if I ever talked to him again. He didn’t even know me when we were on speak­ing terms, how would he know me now? I’ve changed so dras­ti­cally in the last year.

We never left things off on bad terms. We just stopped talk­ing to each other, so there wasn’t any ani­mos­ity, on my part, at least. I never con­tacted him because I never felt like it, and I was expect­ing years to go by before he con­tacted me.

Then he called on the week­end. It took me by sur­prise. I thought e-mail was a way for him to stay dis­tant, while ful­fill­ing the min­i­mum parental respon­si­bil­ity. I had guests over and was enter­tain­ing and some­what charged up. He started talk­ing to me in Chinese, and I could only reply in English. It was too much for my mind, and I was too much on my guard. So I told him to call me next week.

And he did.

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Date  December 21, 2007
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Categories  Random Thoughts

Lessons From a Childhood of Abuse

11

I often explain to peo­ple that Karaoke to the Chinese is like drink­ing to the British. We don’t pour pints at our par­ties, we sing. It’s part of the cul­ture. The Chinese-Canadian dream is a Toyota in every dri­ve­way and a Karaoke machine in every house.

My dad was no excep­tion. Like all his hob­bies, he took Karaoke seri­ously. He had singing lessons from a famous teacher. Sometimes, he would record him­self and lis­ten to the tapes to ana­lyze his singing when dri­ving me to school. We would never talk on those hour-long rides, I would only hear him singing, some­times along with his recorded voice, some­times prac­tic­ing the parts that he didn’t have quite right.

When I was young, about seven, I would sing one of the English songs from his col­lec­tion. I couldn’t tell you why. Karaoke didn’t par­tic­u­larly inter­est me. Maybe it was a way for me to be a part of his life. He had noth­ing to do with me otherwise.

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Date  April 5, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts

Moving On (An Update)

2
Thumbnail: Pint of Strongbow
Thumbnail: Two on flower
Thumbnail: Red wall
Thumbnail: Row of Pockey
Thumbnail: Bead poodle
Thumbnail: Shoe pot
Thumbnail: Bronwen at the Elephant and Castle

Trolley's Moving Out

Trolley’s mov­ing out, and tak­ing most of the liv­ing room with him. I’ve been pre-occupied with match­ing two-piece sec­tion­als, clever hid­den stor­age cof­fee tables, other things that are com­pletely unnec­es­sary in the hunter-gatherer sense of life. Pat’s tak­ing me fur­ni­ture shop­ping this Monday, from morn­ing to night. I’ll be in debt soon, going into my line of credit off my house for the first time, but it’ll be oh so worth it.

Father's Day Without a Dad

Father’s day came and went. I waited until the 3rd Sunday of June to see if my dad would call me first, but he never did, not since the divorce. Not ever actu­ally. It was always my mom who called, and passed the phone to him. We’d make small talk for roughly 30–60 sec­onds, and he’d pass the phone back to mom. The last time I spoke to him was when I went back home in April. At least my mom called to make sure I was okay after she broke the news. Even she told me to call him, but I don’t feel like it. If any­thing, he owes me.

A New Paddle

Table ten­nis at the club ended, as the venue is shut­ting down until the fall. The only phys­i­cal activ­ity left for me is the occa­sional match with Pat at his new place. I bought a new pen­hold blade, a Mazunov OFF+, and two Sriver 2.1mm rub­bers, mark­ing the first time that I started using speed glue with a cus­tom pad­dle. I’ve only had the chance to try them out a few times, but I can tell that the setup has been per­fect for my offen­sive style. I was appre­hen­sive of get­ting rub­bers that were too thick (2.4mm) and fast, for fear that my foot­work wouldn’t be able to keep up, but I’ll def­i­nitely con­sider it once these ones wear out.

Getting Slashdotted

I met one of my life’s goals when I was Slashdotted for my HomeStar Planetarium review. The vis­its for the first 12 hours nearly jumped to 15,000, but the server han­dled the load, albeit a lit­tle slowly. Something I can cross off my list.

I Quit

Another thing to cross off is quit­ting the weed. Not for John this time, but for myself. I’ve always had a love-hate rela­tion­ship with mar­i­juana. It’s not the same addic­tion as other drugs. Dr. Andrew Weil, who’s not a pot critic by any means, describes the prob­lem per­fectly in his 2004 book, From Chocolate to Morphine.

Marijuana depen­dence can be sneaky in its devel­op­ment. It doesn’t appear overnight like cig­a­rette addiction…but rather builds up over a long time. The main dan­ger of smok­ing mar­i­juana is sim­ply that it will get away from you, becom­ing more and more of a repet­i­tive habit and less and less of a use­ful way of chang­ing consciousness.

When I tried to quit before, I’d always tell myself “this is the last day”, but I’d say the same thing every day for months at a time. I’d always need an excuse to stop, but none of the excuses I could come up with would ever work. This time it’s offi­cial. I’ve learned all that I can from it, and lost all desire to get burned again. Darren tells me that he’s done too, and when he vis­its soon it’ll mark the first time that we’ve hung out sober in three years. I’m curi­ous if we’ll have any­thing in com­mon now.

New Business

There’s been an upturn of busi­ness. Through Pat, I got a small web­site con­tract for my per­sonal com­pany, and I recently joined a stock pho­tog­ra­phy site to make some extra money off my pic­tures. I take my cam­era with me every­where, and I don’t have to do any­thing for the roy­al­ties if other peo­ple pur­chase them any­way. All that’s left to do now is get­ting some model release forms signed from peo­ple of var­i­ous par­ties that I’ve taken. I also bought a book about real estate invest­ments in Canada, in hopes that I’ll soon be able to make my money work for me, instead of vice versa.

A Few Events

Aaron’s Canada Day bar­be­cue is on Saturday. Darren’s com­ing the next week­end. I’m also sup­posed to see Shirley at some point, since I haven’t seen her in half a year. I gave her a call two weeks ago, in hopes that I could take her fam­ily out for some dim sum, but she hasn’t returned. I’m a lit­tle hurt. We barely get to see each other any­way, but it’s hard to blame a mother of three for being too busy.

Not that I have much time myself lately.

Date  June 30, 2006
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

Growing Pains

9

Thumbnail: Dry bacon

I caught my father after a shower. How for­mal the word, father. Like address­ing a char­ac­ter in some Elizabethan play. His hair was mussed, wild, even thin­ner than before. He’s been going gray since he was 15, and every cou­ple of months he colours it black again. It works for him, tak­ing at least ten years off his age. People don’t really know how old he is until he tells them that I’m in my twenties.

How scary it was to see him like this, like some crazy old fool with all his hair point­ing out­ward and uncom­posed, but still know­ing that he was still my sta­ble, strong, cold father. The thought that he may one day go senile, lose the viril­ity that he seems so des­per­ate to cling to, filled me with pity.

The bacon they serve me for break­fast is dry, dull, devoid of soft fat, or grease that pools in the waves of each strip. A result of his heart con­di­tion. No more cheese, red meat only once a week.

Thumbnail: Wrinkled hand

Even my moth­ers’ del­i­cate hands have deeply with­ered, though they remain soft from her atten­tive care, which include vary­ing sorts of designer hand creams and spe­cial­ized lotions that fol­low her every­where. My par­ents have long stopped wear­ing their wed­dings bands, but she wears one of my grand­moth­ers rings, a beau­ti­ful old-fashioned cut on a clamp mount, left to her in the will. I remem­ber my grand­mother pinch­ing my cheeks, hold­ing my hand, her skin loose but, like mom, sup­ple as a soft­ened chamois.

I see this ring on my mother, and real­ize that she’s get­ting older too.

Date  October 10, 2005
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Categories  Daily Life Photos
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