Viewing entries tagged with "friendship"   //
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sine wave

2

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.

Date  February 13, 2012
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

wrapped in chords

1

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.

Date  February 3, 2012
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Categories  Photos Random

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Date  December 18, 2011
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Categories  Daily Life Photos Video

friendship cycles

4

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. [↑]
Date  May 3, 2011
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Categories  Thoughts

Cranium Party, the Third

6

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. [↑]
Date  June 15, 2010
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Categories  Daily Life

Letters to Girls Mothers

10

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.

Date  February 10, 2010
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Categories  Random

Super Bowl Sunday

2

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.

Date  February 8, 2010
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Categories  Daily Life Photos

Protected: A Bad Investment

8

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Date  October 15, 2009
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Protected: Questioning Effort

7

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Date  March 12, 2009
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Dear Oreste

5

I hope this reaches you. I don’t know how else to con­tact you.

I know we haven’t talked in a while. It’s not like we ended on bad terms or any­thing — far from it. For me, high school was filled with peo­ple in that uncom­fort­able cat­e­gory known as “acquain­tances”. And while we never hung out much out­side of school, I still con­sid­ered you some­what close for a school­mate, cause the fact of the mat­ter is that I didn’t hang out with any­one out­side of school.

I’m glad I was in the same house as you, and that for part of it, your locker was across from mine. In many ways, I used to look up to you. You were dif­fer­ent from every­one, but you fit in every­where. You car­ried your­self with a com­bi­na­tion of human­ity and intel­li­gence. On more than one occa­sion, you taught me how to be a decent per­son in a way that my par­ents never could, with­out even real­iz­ing it I bet.

To be hon­est, I don’t look back on my days at UCC very fondly. They were awk­ward and uncom­fort­able for me. The only per­son I keep in touch with on a reg­u­lar basis is John. Aside from him and a few oth­ers, I was glad to leave my UCC past behind me. I still think of you from time to time though, whether it’s out of con­cern or curiosity.

I’m com­ing to Toronto in a few weeks, and was hop­ing we could meet up. I’d like to find out what you’ve been up to in the last ten years, because you used to be good at any­thing you were inter­ested in. Maybe you’ve changed as much as I have. I remem­ber you as a good per­son, and as I get older, I’m learn­ing that good peo­ple are few and far between. I’d like to keep in touch with the ones I’ve been for­tu­nate enough to know.

— Jeff

Date  November 11, 2008
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Categories  Random

Waxing John

7

The rite of pas­sage for the males of our gen­er­a­tion — the gen­er­a­tion of the met­ro­sex­ual and hair­less porn­star — is get­ting waxed. As an act of true love for Sheila in endur­ing the pain, John asked me if I would clean up the hair on his back and arms. I agreed, as long as I could film it.

Waxing John from Jeff Ngan on Vimeo.

I sup­pose that near the end of the video my sadis­tic side comes out when I start to laugh, or dare I say, enjoy hear­ing him scream.

“This is like true friend­ship”, he says, “Waxing your best friends back when you’ve got a Y-chromosome”.

Date  January 28, 2008
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Categories  Popular Random Video

The Ardent Friends

4

Sometimes, all I need is a friend to sup­port me.

Even the times when I know I’m stu­pid or illog­i­cal. Especially those times, I just want some­one to lis­ten and agree.

I remem­ber Aaron going through a rough patch a cou­ple years ago. He told me he couldn’t let Rob know, because Rob would have jumped in his car and busted open some heads. Aaron con­fided in me because he needed an objec­tive opin­ion to work through the sit­u­a­tion, whereas Rob may have hurt more than help.

Even though I agreed, I felt like Rob’s ardent per­son­al­ity was a sign of true broth­er­hood. It doesn’t mat­ter what the logic is, it doesn’t mat­ter what the rea­sons are, your ene­mies are his ene­mies. It’s almost like he’s blinded by his love.

And as much as there are times when Aaron doesn’t tell Rob some­thing, I’m sure there are times when doesn’t tell me things either because he needs an fer­vent friend. He needs some­one who will take his side no mat­ter what. I know I do.

Don’t get me wrong; I have plenty of friends I can go to for an hon­est opin­ion. In fact, I go to them more often than not. John’s always there to con­tra­dict me and keep me in check, Pat’s there to ratio­nal­ize the sit­u­a­tion, and Aaron’s there to help me find a solu­tion. But every now and then, the uncon­di­tional sup­port of an ardent friend gives me strength and courage more than any­thing else.

Everyone should have such secu­rity. To be able to call some­one at any time of day who’ll be there in a heart­beat1. Everyone should have a friend like Rob in their lives.

The ardent friends are just as impor­tant as the objec­tive ones.

  1. Of course, you have to earn that kind of respect from Rob, because he doesn’t give it to just any­one. [↑]
Date  January 8, 2008
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Categories  Thoughts

A Test Of Love

3

So I deleted your num­bers off my speed dial. I took down your pic­tures. It was an in-the-moment thing.

I’m calm now, see­ing things objec­tively, yet still undecided.

Part of me wants to believe we can still be friends. That we can still hang out with­out me depend­ing on you for any­thing. But I’m not like that, and I don’t stay friends with those on whom I can’t depend.

I put aside my issues for my friends, and I needed you to do the same for me.

I cried, not only because you weren’t there when I needed you, not only because you had a respon­si­bil­ity to my friends as well, but because I never allow those who hurt me so much to be a part of my life. Our friend­ship may be lost, and this is what upsets me the most. Perhaps it hurts so much because you were so impor­tant to me. I don’t want to lose that, but I’ll never for­get what you did and I’ll never trust you again.

And if I can for­give you, you’ll know that I truly love you.

Date  September 5, 2007
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Categories  Random

Just Enough To Get Me Through

7

My boss caught me cry­ing in my office. He must have heard me hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, because my back was turned.

I have to be strong now. For my friends. This day isn’t about me, it’s about them.

And that’ll be enough to get me through.

Date  September 1, 2007
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Categories  Daily Life

Pat Doesn't Need Me

5

Sometimes I feel like I don’t offer any­thing to Pat. I call him for advice all the time, ask him to give me rides (gro­ceries, fur­ni­ture, large items on which he bar­gains), vent to him. He grew up rely­ing on nobody but him­self, so he never asks me for any favours, and I sup­pose he has Jen with whom to express his feelings.

Maybe this is the root of my inse­cu­rity. Pat’s friend­ship with me appears diluted. We’d both take a bul­let for our friends, but mine is a far more exclu­sive club than his.

Pat doesn’t need me.

But I need him.

Date  July 26, 2007
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Categories  Thoughts
Viewing entries tagged with "friendship"   //
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