equivocality — Jeff Ngan's collection of thoughts, experiences, and projects, inspired by pretty much everything
Viewing entries tagged with "friendship"
Pages (3): 123
18 Apr 13
3

the distances we travel and yet how far we've still to sail

It’s all a bit of a blur now, espe­cially since we agree it feels like it’s been a year since my respon­si­bil­i­ties as a son and a cousin and a friend in Toronto. I do remem­ber try­ing to bal­ance the caf­feine — so I could be clear-headed and enjoy­ing myself — with the insom­nia that comes from hav­ing so much energy every night. Also, these acts of guer­rilla hap­pi­ness where mes­sages of hope were expressed through posters and spray paint. It would appear that van­dal­ism crosses over into art only in cities with a sky­line worth mentioning.

We ended up at the Ontario Science Centre twice, once as nerds and again as wed­ding guests, which worked out cause the only exhibit we didn’t get a chance to see one day ended up being the only exhibit open to us dur­ing the recep­tion. The high­light is always the plan­e­tar­ium though, in all it’s bean-bag, time-traveling glory, the expe­ri­ence itself worth the price of admis­sion. With the excep­tion of a poor fac­sim­ile of dragon’s beard candy, every­thing worked out.

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tagged with #friendship #Lisa #Toronto / filed under Daily Life Photos
11 Jan 13
0

a heavier dose

I’ve been try­ing to stay vocal about my needs, lest I fall back into old life traps and defence mech­a­nisms. It means I’m still apply­ing lessons learned from last year, still try­ing to be open even if it means being vulnerable.

As far as I can tell, this has been work­ing in my favour. Otherwise, Seth wouldn’t be com­ing over on Saturday to teach me how to play the acoustic ver­sion of Sean Rowe’s Jonathan, one of those songs I’ve always wanted to learn before I die.

As a side-effect, it’s been a strug­gle to bal­ance my rela­tion­ship needs with over­stim­u­la­tion. The other night we smoked an apéri­tif in the car before spend­ing three hours gorg­ing our­selves on all-you-can-eat sushi, learn­ing that the small but sig­nif­i­cant priv­i­leges of our class come in plates of bite-sized fatty pro­tein made to order. Then we watched the entire first sea­son of Tim and Eric, Awesome Show! Great Job, and played Magic until 4:30 in the morning.

It left me burnt out and I must have lost two days, yet it still feels like I don’t have enough nights like that, shar­ing real moments with peo­ple who don’t per­pet­u­ally have some­where else to be or some­one else to see. I need more of those times in my every­day life, not just in the days marked on my calendar.

tagged with #friends #friendship #parties / filed under Daily Life Photos Video
30 Nov 12
2

creature comforts

Thank you win­ter for mak­ing my cats super cud­dly and slow-falling snow and the chance to wear new cardigan-dress shirt com­bos. You are totally worth the has­sle of hav­ing to warm up my car (for now). It’s because of you that I learn how trust is found in the gen­tle coo­ing of girls who fall asleep on your shoulder.

Mornings are spent upstairs in the break­fast nook, now that I have work I can get done on my MacBook Pro. To be bathed in the cool sun­light reflect­ing off the snow was a change of pace I never knew I needed.

birthday brunch

Jesse’s birth­day brunch at the Lieutenant’s Pump.

I’ve been liv­ing with­out any sort of sched­ule. It’s nice to be able to make my own hours cause I’m far more pro­duc­tive at night, but it also makes my life free of the struc­ture that keeps me paced and bal­anced. The only rea­son I have to keep any sort of reg­u­lar sleep­ing pat­tern is so I can be awake when my friends are.

Still, I tend to stay up past the point of exhaus­tion so I don’t get stuck in an end­less cycle of thought when try­ing to fall asleep. Otherwise, the cider always helps.

sneaky cat

Soon, hunger will over­take the fear of punishment.

It’s one of those weeks where I’m feel­ing antsy cause I don’t know when I’m see­ing Lisa next and I haven’t heard from her in a while. I don’t pur­sue the issue cause she has her own life, and I have so much to do that it works out any­way, but that doesn’t make me miss her any less. Our time is spe­cial cause there are so many things I share only with her, our exclu­sive lit­tle club for Breaking Bad, cat walks, and super hotties.

It feels like I only talk about my friends lately. Probably cause that’s what my life is filled with now. They’re the good that’s come out of the bad, the ones who picked up the ball when oth­ers let it drop. They val­i­date me and notice what I wear and lis­ten to me cause they believe what I’m say­ing mat­ters. And at the very least, they’re a chance for me to care about some­one else.

tagged with #friendship #Lisa #winter / filed under Daily Life Photos
17 Oct 12
2

reduction

Heather made reser­va­tions for us (and Sergey) at the Back Lane Café last week. We hadn’t seen each other since the sum­mer, before they were home­less 1 and I started recov­er­ing. Last time I saw her, she left me with a take­out Hintonburger and a med­i­ta­tion audio­book that she hoped would help me feel bet­ter. It was so sweet that she didn’t under­stand at all what I was going through, but tried so hard to help with very thought­ful gifts anyway.

This time, she wouldn’t let me pay, even though she treated me last time as well, and she said please with such heart­felt intent that I knew she’d be hurt if I didn’t give her the hon­our. We’d been play­ing phone tag for weeks up to that point, and between their careers and camp­ing, they could only spare them­selves for a meal sans tea or dessert. It made me real­ize how pre­cious their time is nowa­days, and the fact that they made the time to see me meant so much more than the two hours we spent catch­ing up over a great food and conversation.

poached shrimp salad

Poached shrimp salad, with Niagara nec­tarines, bibb let­tuce (for it’s ten­der tex­ture), endive, lime, and hazel­nut dress­ing. An appe­tizer good enough for a main.

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  1. They got evicted due to an unsym­pa­thetic land­lord, couldn’t find a suit­able place to stay, and ended up putting as many of their pos­ses­sions as pos­si­ble in stor­age and sell­ing the rest. Luckily, one of their friends needed a house-sitter, and it gave them enough time to find a place. [↩]
tagged with #Aaron #busy #friendship #Lisa #reflection #Tiana / filed under Daily Life Photos
16 Sep 12
2

a million distractions to keep me warm

Two hours later, I woke up with­out any sense of direction.

Now I’m try­ing to fig­ure out how to stay awake so I can be tired enough to fall asleep again. The fatigue isn’t enough to keep me down. I had a big break­fast, some­thing I haven’t done in as long as I can remem­ber, owing to the fact that they used to be the rit­ual of a per­son with week­ends and a need for rituals.

At some point along the way, I real­ized it’s eas­ier to take care of my friends and help them fix their prob­lems. I can’t fig­ure out why I’ve avoided deal­ing with my own, but I decided that as long as my dis­trac­tions are ful­fill­ing and healthy in them­selves, there’s noth­ing wrong with that. Sometimes, there’s noth­ing else one can do.

In turn, they’re help­ing me through this odd pas­sage of time, where I find myself unsure of what to do or feel. I’ve had to open myself up to give them a chance to help me. It always leaves me vul­ner­a­ble at first, but when they lis­ten and under­stand and sup­port me, all my inse­cu­ri­ties go away. It’s a tan­gi­ble love that goes far beyond words and intentions.

tagged with #friendship #reflection #Tiana #understanding #vulnerability / filed under Daily Life Video
05 Aug 12
5

I want to know do I stay or do I go

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So.

Filmed a great wed­ding yes­ter­day, one that left me tired and sore and much deserv­ing of a break. It’s a hazy Sunday morn­ing, and another day that it’ll feel like it’s above 40°C with the humid­ity. Working nearly 13 hours and turn­ing into a lit­tle pud­dle of Asian man means I’m con­sciously avoid­ing the out­doors today. I’ll be con­tent to sip my cof­fee and peer out the win­dow at the gen­tly sun­lit trees.

cat and drink on a hot day

Majel helps us taste-test cock­tails for the reception.

Even though it’s get­ting ever closer to her wed­ding, and Lisa has an increas­ing num­ber of things to get done, we’ve been able to see each other more lately. I’ve real­ized that it’s not good enough to have her meet my needs. I have to fill a cer­tain role in her life too. That’s what brings mean­ing to the rela­tion­ship, cause it means she appre­ci­ates me the way I want to be appre­ci­ated. So often, it feels like that’s all I’ve ever wanted.

I’m glad to have devel­oped a rit­ual get-together with Aaron too. When we don’t see each other one week, it feels like a year the next time we catch up. Tonight I’m head­ing over to his house for the start of bach­e­lor week, some­thing we’ve been excit­edly plan­ning for a while now. It’s the first time he’s had the house to him­self since the kids were born, so I’ll be stay­ing there for a few days of games, movies, bar­be­cue, and gen­eral guy stuff, com­ing back home to feed the kit­ties every now and then. We’re doing a six per­son Magic tour­ney tomor­row, my first in the Constructed for­mat, and everyone’s mak­ing new decks for the chance to open some M13 boost­ers. I think my deck con­cept is BRILLIANT and I can’t wait to try it out.

Chet Atkins has also been keep­ing me com­pany lately. I’m so glad to have found his instruc­tional DVD, where he talks with his old man charm about what he likes in each song and how to play them, phrase by phrase. I grew my thumb­nail out nice and long for nearly two months, cut it off for practicality’s sake dur­ing wed­ding sea­son, then imme­di­ately regret­ted the deci­sion. The elec­tric strings I’ve been using have a really flat, dull tone in the lower reg­is­ter, and since the bass line is so impor­tant in Chet’s arrange­ments, it’s like an entire part is miss­ing from any song I try to learn. I’m going to try learn­ing with a thumb pick, which is some­thing I’ve been avoid­ing for a while now cause I hate the loss of sen­si­tiv­ity (like a con­dom on your thumb), but hope­fully the com­pro­mise is worth it.

I have things to orga­nize, chores to do, errands to run, and a house to clean before I leave. For now, I’ll enjoy the rest of the morn­ing, wast­ing time.

tagged with #Aaron #cats #friendship #guitar #Lisa / filed under Daily Life Photos
13 Feb 12
2

sine wave

It’s per­pet­u­ally night in my lit­tle nest. A gui­tar is never more than an arms length away, and two cats are always will­ing to curl up against my body under the sheets (though never together); some days it feels like these are the only things I need in the world. Perhaps I’m lit­tle too com­fort­able here, where I can watch the snow fall out the win­dow, and sel­dom have to ven­ture out of my com­fort zone.

I’m con­stantly start­ing over. Throwing away a page so I can have a blank can­vas. Losing another friend to adult­hood, then find­ing new ones in the most unex­pected places. Riding the oscil­la­tions of a sine wave.

The only thing that’s con­stant is how much Byron is grow­ing, his paws and tail hav­ing sur­passed Dolly’s in girth many months ago, and I can’t wait to see how big he’s going to get once he’s fully into adult­hood. I relate to my friends only when one of the cats is afflicted with acne or her­pes or an upper res­pi­ra­tory infec­tion, and I have to play mother to a kitty who can’t fight the sick­ness by them­selves. Dolly has been espe­cially sen­si­tive lately, and needs a lot more atten­tion and affec­tion, still jeal­ous of the new kit­ten in the house.

cats sleeping butt to butt

Butt to butt.

Lisa keeps me sane nowa­days, a role she’s par­tially taken over from John ever since he became a dad. She’s the voice of female rea­son in my life, the only excuse I use to watch great movies now, and the one who talks me down from drunken e-mails to ex-girlfriends. But some­times I need more than half a Lisa and half a John, cause not every­thing can be solved by a stolen con­ver­sa­tion or bury­ing your face in a cat’s belly.

I’m learn­ing that life goes on, whether you’re ready or not. You can only con­trol so much. This real­iza­tion is the rea­son I don’t worry about the future any­more, even when it feels like I should be worried.

I’ve also dis­cov­ered that my writer’s block hasn’t been due to a lack of things to talk about, but the fact that noth­ing I write is sat­is­fy­ing any­more. I’ve lost my rea­son. The only thing I’ve fallen in love with lately has been my set of extra-light chrome flat­wound strings, cause they have such a crisp sound off the nail, but main­tain a warm, aus­tere overtone.

I used to go to bed and dream, but nowa­days, my mind is empty. I don’t know what to make of it all any­more. Can’t fig­ure out if I’m stand­ing on a crest or trough.

tagged with #Byron #cats #Dolly #friends #friendship #John #Lisa / filed under Daily Life Photos
03 Feb 12
2

wrapped in chords

Context. It’s 19°C in the house. I keep an elec­tric heat­ing pad under my hoodie, the gui­tar is slung around my body, and my head­phones are con­nected to the com­puter. I’m wrapped in chords, with a win­ter scene per­pet­u­ally out­side my window.

I know this won’t last for­ever, so I’m indulging in these lit­tle rit­u­als. Trying to enjoy all the lit­tle things I started tak­ing for granted, like car rides at night when the roads are clear and the car is warm. I’ve lost myself in the shuf­fle. I know I need to recen­tre myself, but I’m wait­ing for things to set­tle down first.

There’s so much I don’t say to my friends. Not because I don’t trust them, but because my news never feels impor­tant enough to bring up. It’s stuff they stopped talk­ing about years ago, cause they’ve moved on from this part of their lives. Well I’m still here, hop­ing everything’s going to work out in the end.

Magic: The Gathering prize

Martial Coup: Put X 1/1 white Soldier crea­ture tokens onto the bat­tle­field. If X is 5 or more, destroy all other crea­tures, and win a box, a booster, a pack of nice lands.

I real­ized that I don’t spend that much time with my core group any­more, but I do hang out with a revolv­ing group of friends. It seems like there’s always another per­son to catch up with, another meal to share, another night of gam­ing with the guys. It’s keep­ing me occu­pied, for which I’m thank­ful lately.

Otherwise, I’ve been think­ing a lit­tle bit about the past and a lot about the future. Trying to pic­ture where I’m going to end up, but it’s never some­thing I can fig­ure out.

tagged with #busy #friendship #reflection / filed under Photos Random
18 Dec 11
6

a horse is not a home

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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tagged with #father #friendship #John #Toronto / filed under Daily Life Photos Video
03 May 11
4

friendship cycles

I haven’t talked to John since he got mar­ried, which was almost a month ago. This is an inor­di­nately long time, con­sid­er­ing the fact that he used to call me almost every other day. I don’t blame him cause I know he just got back from his hon­ey­moon, moved into a new house, and is catch­ing up on work. I’ve never been hap­pier for him, but that still leaves me long­ing for the com­fort of the only per­son I say so much to. He was my only con­sis­tent source of inter­ac­tion with the out­side world.

cutting the wedding cake

Head table, bitches.

Alayna just had her 20 week ultra­sound, and they’re going to have a boy. When the baby’s born, I’ll have even less of him.

It’s not like I’ve given up on John, but I have to face the fact that he’s in a very dif­fer­ent place now, and needs to focus on his fam­ily. That means I need to give him space; it’s exactly what he would do for me if our sit­u­a­tions were reversed1. Considering the fact that the rela­tion­ship, mar­riage, baby, and house weren’t on the hori­zon only half a year ago, it’s a very sud­den change for me.

I’ve learned that all rela­tion­ships — roman­tic or not — have unique begin­nings and end­ings. Some are short-term and run their course quickly, oth­ers are long-term and last until pass­ing, and they can all come and go at any point in our lives.

It makes me won­der when I’ll meet another friend I can spend time with the way I can with John. Someone I can call up and hang out with spon­ta­neously, with­out feel­ing like I need to keep them enter­tained. Someone I can have on the phone with­out say­ing any­thing, and for whom I can have an excuse to cook. Someone around whom I can let my guard down, which is prob­a­bly the most dif­fi­cult thing for me to do when it comes to being social. There have been a few peo­ple like that through the years, but things fall apart, and that’s why I’m left here, miss­ing the com­fort of a close friend.

  1. Although I’m sure it’d be eas­ier for him cause I’m more depen­dent, even though I tend to be the one in con­trol in our friend­ship. [↩]
tagged with #friends #friendship #John / filed under Thoughts
15 Jun 10
6

Cranium Party, the Third

So out of the 26 peo­ple I invited to the third Cranium Party, 9 said they couldn’t make it, 13 said they’d come, and 4 didn’t RSVP at all.

Out of the 13 peo­ple who said they’d come, only 3 of them showed up, and one of those was Jessica, who was sort of co-hosting this one with me, so fuck yeah she was there1.

That means that includ­ing me, we had four peo­ple, which is the bare min­i­mum to play Cranium.

To say I was dis­ap­pointed is an under­state­ment. I spent a great deal of time and energy mak­ing the invi­ta­tions, and clean­ing the house so my guests could be com­fort­able. Not to men­tion all the food I bought, most of which went bad because there weren’t enough peo­ple to eat it (and espe­cially when the guests who do show up also bring plenty of snacks).

We did end up play­ing a good game, but it was entirely not worth all the preparation.

Jessica offered to host the next one at her place — very nice of her because that really means she’s offer­ing to shoul­der all the respon­si­bil­i­ties — but I feel like Cranium par­ties are my thing. An invi­ta­tion is not only an invi­ta­tion to play, it’s an invi­ta­tion into my social cir­cle. The guest list is tightly con­trolled; any­one on it is either a very close friend, or some­one I can tell has the poten­tial to be. I want to have all the respon­si­bil­ity, because it’s one of the ways I can show these peo­ple they’re impor­tant to me.

At the same time, some peo­ple are already ask­ing about the next one2, which I find strange because the impres­sion I get is that it’s a low pri­or­ity, never some­thing peo­ple put in their sched­ule and plan around. I’m pretty sure most only go if noth­ing else comes up on that day.

That’s fine by me — not every­one loves doing bad impres­sions of Christopher Walken as much as I do — but when peo­ple say they’re going to be there and don’t show up, it’s a com­plete deval­u­a­tion of my efforts. I’m seri­ously ques­tion­ing if I’m going to host another Cranium party any time soon. If I do, the next invite list will undoubt­edly be much shorter.

At the very least, the day was sal­vaged with some bub­ble tea, Chinese food, and qual­ity time with Jessica.

  1. She’s also the only per­son to make it to all Cranium par­ties up to now. [↩]
  2. I pur­posely don’t make them a reg­u­lar thing because I want them to be spe­cial. [↩]
tagged with #friendship #parties / filed under Daily Life
10 Feb 10
10

Letters to Girls Mothers

I’ve been try­ing to write a let­ter to her mother. Something like this:

I was going to stop by on my last trip to Toronto, but part of me real­ized it may have made things com­pli­cated, since it’d be the first time since we stopped talk­ing to each other. Not that I was scared you would take a side, but because I didn’t want you to think I was forc­ing that deci­sion on you.

All I want to say is that I miss all of you ter­ri­bly, she was spe­cial, and it’s a pity things didn’t work out. But it was much beyond our con­trol. I don’t know if either of us will ever grow out of these dif­fer­ences that hold us back.

The last time I came to visit, it was almost 2pm on a Tuesday and you were both at work. I scratched a note on the back of a notepad to let you know I stopped by, and she told me you liked me so much, you stuck it on your fridge. That always meant a lot.

Thanks for everything.

But all of it comes out sound­ing defen­sive. I wish I could explain how I’m not angry but sad, which is a tes­ta­ment to how great they were. I can’t fig­ure out how to put the ball in their court, to let them know that if they’re okay with it, and she’s okay with it, we can still be friends. I really don’t know how appro­pri­ate that would be anyway.

Sometimes, the hard­est part of giv­ing up the girls is giv­ing up their par­ents too.

tagged with #friendship #letters / filed under Random
08 Feb 10
2

Super Bowl Sunday

Thumbnail: Aaron pumps gas

We cover a lot of ground on the drive, stuff I wouldn’t admit to just any­one. It’s good to have a set amount of time for some one on one. We see each other at par­ties, but it’s never time by ourselves.

Thumbnail: Rob's lair

We get there a few hours early because it isn’t so much about the game as hang­ing out with the two friends I don’t see enough. There’s a cooler full of snow and beer, and the food is com­ing in pro­tein; pigs-in-blankets, ground beef nachos, chicken fin­gers, crab dip, meat balls.

Thumbnail: Cradle

For a night, I’m with guys who punch arms, exchange ver­bal jabs, and laugh at blue col­lar jokes. Two lit­tle girls run around, and no one ever lets that change them. Now they’re fathers, but they’ll always be real men.

tagged with #Aaron #friendship / filed under Daily Life Photos
15 Oct 09
8

Protected: A Bad Investment

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tagged with #conflict #friends #friendship #human interaction / filed under Random
12 Mar 09
7

Protected: Questioning Effort

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tagged with #friendship / filed under Random
Viewing entries tagged with "friendship"
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