Posts tagged with "food"

days of heaven

I don’t get up to much late­ly. Living the life of a gen­tle­man of leisure does­n’t involve a lot more than the front page of red­dit, scrolling the infi­nite feed that nev­er leaves me bored. I also tend take a lot of naps; par­tial­ly cause I’m a poor sleep­er, par­tial­ly cause it makes the hours go by faster (and as a per­son who does his best to nev­er be sober, it resets my tol­er­ance).

Rideau Canal

On Ottawa’s bridge of locks, over­look­ing the Rideau Canal.

I want to devote myself to the pur­suits that inter­est me, but being pro­duc­tive has­n’t been easy. I haven’t had the inspi­ra­tion to write, the moti­va­tion to clean, the ener­gy to exer­cise, the dis­ci­pline to prac­tice, or the patience to med­i­tate. I only man­age to do the bare min­i­mum, which usu­al­ly just involves cook­ing a week of meals for Heather and some vac­u­um­ing before guests arrive.

It’s been hard to form pos­i­tive mem­o­ries cause I can’t con­cen­trate on any­thing for more than a few sec­onds. It always seems like there’s some­thing bet­ter to do, anoth­er but­ton I can press for a quick­er reward. Everything just becomes a dis­trac­tion from how bro­ken I feel.

chocolate poutine

Chocolate pou­tine, where the “fries” are chur­ros, the melt­ed “cheese curds” are marsh­mal­lows with vanil­la ice cream, the “gravy” is crunchy hazel­nut fon­due, and the “panties” are dropped. Then every­thing is cov­ered in Maltesers and driz­zled in choco­late sauce.

Maybe cause I’m old­er, grey­er, fat­ter, more tired, a shad­ow of my for­mer self. Most nights I go to bed feel­ing defec­tive or worth­less, then wake up feel­ing too help­less to do any­thing about it. A few months ago this would have been a sure­fire recipe for depres­sion, but now I’m try­ing to prac­tice non-action over weeks and months instead of days or hours.

Coming to terms with myself and my dif­fi­cult emo­tions — no mat­ter how unpleas­ant they may be — is help­ing me reduce my wants, end my com­pul­sive strug­gling to do every­thing bet­ter, and live more in the moment. For so long I’ve been try­ing to accept the things I can­not change, with­out also try­ing to accept the per­son to whom they’re hap­pen­ing.

Leaning into my trau­ma with open eyes and an open heart also involves pur­pose­ly think­ing about a past I’ve tried my best to for­get, and cry­ing1. It has­n’t been very pleas­ant, but I’m start­ing to feel like less of a vic­tim when I can con­front my suf­fer­ing from a posi­tion of strength and con­trol.

Heather and Jeff

I haven’t had a col­i­tis flare-up in a cou­ple years, which means I put on weight quick­ly, most­ly in the mid-sec­tion. These days I can’t fit into all my pants and rock a dad bod. For the first time in my life, I’ve been cut­ting back on por­tions and snacks.

None of this would be pos­si­ble with­out Heather, who’s been mend­ing the hole in my heart ever since we met. She’s the only rea­son I have the time, the resources, the strength, and the will to car­ry on. Anytime I feel like a bur­den, she reminds me that I’m a wor­thy one; a load she glad­ly shoul­ders, because I add to her life sim­ply by exist­ing.

When I over­hear her telling the cats to be good and take care of dad­dy before leav­ing for work every morn­ing, I can’t help but believe it. No one has ever loved me so much — not even myself — and as my bene­fac­tor, she wants noth­ing more for me than to be hap­py. I’m try­ing to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for that hap­pi­ness by show­ing myself com­pas­sion, even when I feel like I haven’t earned it.

  1. Only pos­si­ble months after I made the deci­sion to stop tak­ing arip­ipra­zole. [↩]

going out in style

Cause I want to has been the rea­son for every­thing late­ly.

I start­ed to under­stand how we’re all dying in the Silvia Plath sense of the word, so I decid­ed I might as well go out in style. Vonnegut got it right with his Pall Malls, though I choose not to add tobac­co to the mix.

Magic draft

Steve draws some­thing real­ly good or real­ly bad.

I quite con­sis­tent­ly get my ass kicked at the drafts that Seth hosts, his crew always being made up of vet­er­an play­ers. The advan­tage is that I always walk away hav­ing learned a thing or two, and get­ting enough new cards to build on a con­cept is a nice lit­tle bonus. If some­one told me I’d be spend­ing mon­ey on a col­lec­table card game at this age, I nev­er would have believed it.

Magic has been keep­ing me busy in a good way. It’s nev­er just about play­ing, it’s also about being around friends, and the cama­raderie, and get­ting fat on Steph’s amaz­ing meals. Those are exact­ly the things I need in my life.

pho and spring rolls

#1, beef rare, every time.

The red bean ice is a treat I don’t get often enough.

It was hard bal­anc­ing my time around oth­ers and the time I need­ed alone. I have needs that require the com­pa­ny of cer­tain peo­ple, and when I’m try­ing to meet those needs, that often leaves me feel­ing very over­stim­u­lat­ed. The exhaus­tion had been giv­ing me flare-ups, not to men­tion headaches that dulled the sens­es and elo­quence.

Now I have some breath­ing room, and a chance to do all the lit­tle things I’d been too occu­pied to han­dle, like catch­ing up with peo­ple I haven’t seen in a while, get­ting the car fixed (from $9k worth of hail dam­age), fil­ing my tax­es (from two years ago), chang­ing the strings on my uke to high‑G tun­ing, or just watch­ing a movie. I’m still in night mode though, where I tend to get the most done after 10pm, and I find myself staving off sleep to do just one more thing.

root beer float

Root beer floaaaaaaaaaaaaat.

I want to trav­el some­where, cause it feels like it’s time to step out of my com­fort zone again. I haven’t made enough of my own expe­ri­ences and mem­o­ries for too long. But I’m in too unsta­ble a place right now, and I prob­a­bly will be for at least anoth­er year or so. Ironic that it’s insta­bil­i­ty I crave. It’s left me won­der­ing what I should be explor­ing here.

i miss

try­ing new foods with my Uncle Joe and the fas­ci­na­tion I used to have for Six Feet Under and being able to sleep more than four con­tin­u­ous hours and gui­tar lessons and the sound girls make when you squeeze them just right and the idea of camp­ing but not the actu­al act and remem­ber­ing how to play Sunny Road and Trolley and Steph already and snow and peo­ple-watch­ing when tak­ing the bus and long-term rela­tion­ships and

two girls and a baby

these kind of moments before we all par­take and

the smell of rain in Paris and make­outs and know­ing what to say to peo­ple when they ask me how I’m doing and being led by the hand to the bed­room and being called Jeffy Bear and hav­ing a rea­son to wear Classic by Banana Republic and get­ting real­ly excit­ed and being pur­sued by some­one I’m not try­ing to avoid and the time in my life before all this med­ica­tion and hav­ing some­one I could call my best friend and cud­dling and walks and old /b/ and Bruce Springstein before he went rock and no one I should­n’t and hav­ing a Tai Chi teacher and

bums like this

lit­tle bums like this and

know­ing how to play piano and pounc­ing on sur­vivors with Dave and Tyler and hav­ing a sta­ble source of income and being part of her life and hav­ing her in mine and Hawaiian sun­sets and find­ing sales for clothes that fit me and play­ing songs for Antje and the inti­ma­cy of oral and simul­ta­ne­ous orgasms and sex, obvi­ous­ly and hav­ing some­one to spoil and new episodes of Reno 911 and host­ing big par­ties and the way Leonard would sleep on my neck.

this is my happy face

All i want to write about late­ly is sun­sets and awk­ward hugs and redis­cov­er­ing coconut mac­a­roons and under­wear and sec­ondish chances and grow­ing old and jus­tice and my new aware­ness of food indus­try issues and the smell of out­doors no mat­ter what the sea­son and want­i­ng to see Germany and my new Magic decks and that last date and how hard it is to do Street Fighter IV com­bos and pic­tures like this

golden girl

and not hav­ing to wear a coat any­more and hand­shakes after real­ly close games and peo­ple being nice to me and feel­ing more com­fort­able with barre chords and what Geneviève wears and Breaking Bad and Nick Drake’s life and root beer floats and the sound of a melod­i­ca and pret­ty cats and open­ing boost­ers and the lux­u­ry of say­ing no and how weird it feels to dri­ve some­where in your PJs and intro­duc­ing oth­ers to that aloe drink and the same old mem­o­ries that I still cher­ish and mini-Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and walk­ing base­lines and being sur­round­ed by such good peo­ple and hav­ing a PS3 and the time com­plex­i­ty of sort­ing algo­rithms and won­der­ing if it’s too late to call and how excit­ed Ryan gets when I vis­it and the songs I want to write and my mem­o­ries of America and scent­ed oils from the Body Shop and choco­late beers and the image of a gauzy dress in the sun.

coming up for air

I did­n’t know I need­ed a week­end like this to feel again. To dance in those lit­tle moments between brush­ing your teeth and get­ting into bed. To pass on the right and speed away to a cho­rus that grows loud­er with every shad­ow cast by every street lamp.

I can’t say it’s been due to any one thing. There’s just so much that seems to be hap­pen­ing late­ly. The days pass faster than ever, and I’m left won­der­ing where life will take me next, cause I’m always sur­prised by every new friend and unex­pect­ed expe­ri­ence.

Wild Boar pizza at Tennessy Willems

Wild boar piz­za at Tennessy Willems, one of the few wood-burn­ing pizze­rias in Ottawa. A com­bi­na­tion of boar sausage, caramelized apple, sage, roast­ed gar­lic, and sharp ched­dar. The sweet­ness of the apple and the savoury char­ac­ter of the sausage make for an inter­est­ing mélange, but the use of ched­dar is what real­ly gives this piz­za a unique taste.

When I’m drown­ing in emo­tion, it feels like I’m per­pet­u­al­ly com­ing out of the water, emp­ty­ing my stale lungs before tak­ing in as much air as I can again.

This is when every breath is beau­ti­ful. A rush of life com­ing at me.