Posts tagged with "friendship"

reduction

Heather G 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.

Continue read­ing “reduc­tion”…

  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. [↩]

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.

I want to know do I stay or do I go

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.

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.

friendship cycles

I haven’t talked to ____ 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.

______ 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 ____, 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 ____. 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. [↩]