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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.

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. [↑]

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. [↑]

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:

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.

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.

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.

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. [↑]

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.

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?

(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.

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.

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.

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. [↑]

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.

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.

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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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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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.

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.

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.

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.