I’m free again after my training, and Dave takes me to his favourite restaurant in Nashua to meet up with Sid and his girlfriend. It’s a small, family-owned Mexican joint with bright colours and an appropriately accented waitress.

Over dinner, we compare our regional differences. I ask them what it means when someone says “A quarter of one” (12:45), because they don’t say “a quarter to one”. I ask them if they take their shoes off when they get in the house (sometimes, depending on the host), because I noticed no one did when I was in a house¹. I ask them if they have bubble tea (there’s one Vietnamese restaurant that serves it), because it’s all over Canada now. I tell them New York Fries serves poutine (What’s New York Fries?). I pull out some Canadian bills and show them the braille (Oooooooh). At one point, Sid calls me on my “eh”, contrasted from their “huh” used at the end of a sentence to emphasize a point.

Dave and I drive to downtown Manchester, the biggest city in New Hampshire, to a bar/café called Republic. Every month, Dave organizes the Collective, a group of creative people with a certain energy, and a void in their lives when it comes to someone with whom to discuss their endeavors on a practical, nonthreatening, philanthropic level.

I repeat a person’s name after being introduced to them, a trick I learned from the client specialist course I took in New Hampshire four years ago.

At one point, Ed asks us how we know each other, and Dave explains, along with a story:

When my sister and I were kids, we imagined what it would be like if we were more of us, so we needed an older sister and a younger brother to round out the sibling experience. As the oldest brother, I needed to know what having an older sister was like. And we also chose personalities to go with them. I think the older sister was a heavyset, strong girl with a determined, mothering tendency toward us. Her name was Daphne, and she was the type to play field hockey or lacrosse when she went to college had we known what that was back when we were kids. The younger brother would be a slender, artistic type that was a stylish and careful dresser; “metrosexual” was the term we’d have used, my sister commented recently, had we known the word. His name was Leland.

And when he met me yesterday, he thought, “That’s Leland!”. Now he’s wondering if he’s going to run into Daphne in the future.

After two hours of brilliant conversation and exchange of energy, we go our separate ways. These are my people, and I feel the need to start something similar in Ottawa.

I take a picture of us because I leave tomorrow, shortly after the end of the course, and won’t have a chance to see him again. I offer my house if he ever wants to get away and change up his frame of mind, and he returns the offer.

In 24 hours, I’ll be home sweet home again, but certainly wishing I had more time to talk, and relate, and feel as if there was another kindred soul in the world.

1. Not even in my hotel room, which I found very strange. [↑]

The training is light and relaxed. I avoid wearing my name tag, but not the awkward round of introductions everyone has to make around the class. We finish early for the day, and I wonder if there’ll be a test at the end as part of my certification.

I vaguely remember that Dave Seah, my online mentor and personal coach, lives in New Hampshire. We met four years ago when I joined 9rules, and immediately developed a connection. His writing, ideas, and achievements have always inspired me, and he’s been the only person to make a guest post on my blog.

I call him, and as fate would have it, he lives 10 minutes from my hotel. For years, I’ve wondered if he had a New Hampshire accent, and I finally find out he speaks just like me.

Dave picks me up and whisks me away to Factory 99, an open artist studio converted from an old factory, to meet Sid. Sid is a photographer trying to turn his passion into his living. I see his photos, and pick his brain about off-camera flashes, exposure, post-processing, backdrops, and lighting for much longer than I should have. I can’t even explain how many questions he’s answered. I feel like I’ve been through a workshop, and leave with an urgency to try everything I’ve learned. It’s easy to see why Dave is such good friends with him, and the synergy continues.

From there we take a stroll to downtown and onto Main Street. It’s only sunset, and many stores are closed, a sign of the economic downturn. It’s a small city we’re in¹, and there’s almost nothing of note, save for the triangle manhole covers.

We make a quick stop at his house, nestled among evergreens and a cosy part of town, to check on a turkey he’s been slow cooking. I finally get a chance to see his studio in real life. I recognize the laptop he purchased for his project. I see his handwriting. His gun vault. His OLPC laptop. His cats. All the little details I’ve glimpsed from his photos are in front of me now.

We look for a place to have dinner, and decide on some Asian food. He takes us to a Korean/Japanese restaurant. I let him order everything for the both of us. Just from hearing him describe the unagi, I can tell he’s one of the few people who analyze and study and appreciate food the way I do.

Over our steaming bowls of rice and tea, we talk as if we’ve known each other our entire lives. I realize just how similar we are, how we’re at the same stage in life, both self-aware, emotionally intelligent, wondering the same things, figuring out the mysteries of life, and trying to sustain ourselves on what we love doing.

I don’t feel so alone anymore.

1. Compared to Ottawa, at least, at only one tenth the population [↑]

Before getting on his train, Jason asked me if I was a hug-person. It was the right question, because I’m most assuredly a hug-person, and we embraced before he stepped out onto the platform.

We grew up at the same time in the same neighbourhood — a small suburb somewhere in the middle of the 500km that separates us — but never had a chance to meet until he gave a presentation in town for the HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector. Until now, we only communicated through blog comments and e-mail exchanges.

When I first met him, it struck me how much tall he was, and how much deeper his voice was than I expected.

Jason is like me in so many ways, something I find extremely rare. We share a strong self-awareness and a penchant for self-improvement, as well as the same views on love and tastes in women. Perhaps it could be said that Jason is an extroverted version of me. We could discuss things we normally reserve for our close friends, and continue as if we had already known each other’s stories for years. He’s a true kindred spirit, and many times I felt like believing in him meant I believed in myself as well.

Brunch was filled with such stimulation that I forgot to take a picture, so I settled for this one when I went to see him off at the train station. I’m so glad I was able to capture his perpetual smile, that same smile I see in his pictures when he traveling the world, in Budapest, Ghana, New Orleans, and other places with names too foreign for me to remember.

Tiana brought me as her guest to the Ottawa Foodies pot luck, run by Pam¹, and held on a rooftop patio right on Bank Street. It was a true potluck, where no one knew what anyone else was bringing.

The Ottawa Foodies usually gather in the Ottawa Foodie forums, where they discuss recipes and restaurants in Ottawa, so this was the first in-person meeting for many. Many didn’t know each others real names, so there were introductions like, “Hi, I’m MissMuffins862″, or ,”Hi, I’m Thomas, aka BagelRapist”.

I don’t think Tiana was quite ready for the food dorks, the type of which I was already somewhat accustomed to during my time at the computer science program at Ottawa U. I’ve determined that food dorks are just as bad as wine snobs and computer geeks. For example:

There were two guys who got into a heated argument about the kind of fat used in Mcdonald’s french fries. One of these guys also preached to me about the benefits of good rice, (and me — being Chinese — knew absolutely nothing about rice). There was one guy who said, “I’m doing a documentary on the youngest head chef in the ———- region”. I asked “Wow, how did he get that position?”, and his reply was “His parents own the restaurant”. Then realizing the fact that nepotism ruins the credibility of his initial statement, he followed this with “He also made a flowerless brownie at 11.” Tiana asked, “Did he invent it?”. “No, he followed a recipe”. At that point, Tiana and got silent and we just looked at each other.

But what some of these people lack in social skills, they make up for in culinary abilities, and the food was amazing.

So I basically hung out with Tiana the whole time, and pigged out on everything I could. By the end of the night, my truffles, usually rolled in coco powder to prevent them from sticking to each other, had turned into a truffle.

1. Who also happens to know Tim. Ottawa is really small. [↑]

To say goodbye to Tim and Pam, as well as Sunday brunch potlucks altogether, it was decided that something special be done. So we found a shady space in the park for the blankets and food. It was the first time we had wine at one of the potlucks, and a beautiful day.

For some reason, Jess likes to call me Satan. Maybe it’s because cheese is her weakness, and I always enjoy indulging her temptation.

For Tom’s birthday, we gathered at Tim’s for grilled chicken breasts, pork chops, roast beef, and some pleasant conversation. I always find it interesting that the topics we discuss are so different from the ones at parties. Subjects tend to be more intellectual, whereas conversations at Pat’s house, let’s say, are much more jovial and carefree.

 

Tim is, as he puts it, cut from the same cloth as his uncle, insofar as they both enjoy entertaining. They also live in a four-storey house, which is perfect for such a thing.

So every Sunday, people come together for a casual pot luck brunch, where guests are invited to bring food, the idea being that it’s be easier to bring a dish somewhere and share with everyone than sit at home and make breakfast for yourself. Last time, I got to try fancy smoked bacon, and a pancake-batter-cooked-in-bacon-grease experiment.

At this point, enough people know about it that no one has to mention ahead of time whether they’ll be coming, but there’s enough food for all.

Tim described this pretty well in a recent e-mail:

Dear Everyone,

I’m fascinated by coordination problems.

Coordination problems are situations where all the actors involved are more or less on the same side, but there is imperfect information. Everyone wants the same general outcome but isn’t sure how everyone else is going to get at it.

Driving is a solved coordination problem. No one wants an accident so we all want to drive on the same side of the road, but there is nothing special about choosing the left or the right side. How do people pick?

In 1958, Thomas Schelling ran this experiment on a group of university students in Connecticut: “Imagine that you are to meet someone in New York City at noon, but you don’t know where and you can’t get in touch with them in advance. Where do you go?”

Without consulting one another, the majority of them picked the same location. I wonder if you can guess what it was (where would you go?).

Every week, we solve and re-solve a coordination problem with brunch. Everyone wants a good and varied brunch spread. Different people come every week and no one RSVPs, so you can never be sure what other people will bring. We don’t consult in advance, I don’t assign dishes or types of dishes. The only information we have is what was at brunch the previous week and my written suggestion about fruits, which is mercifully ignored by most of you.

Yet every week brunch has a wide range of delicious foods. Isn’t that amazing?

I think it’s amazing.

Hope to see you on Sunday,

Tim

If I was participating in Schelling’s experiment, I would have chosen to meet at the clock in Grand Central Station; it’s always stood out to me because of the way it was prominently featured in the fantasy waltz sequence done by Terry Gilliam in The Fisher King. I had no idea that this was also the information booth, and it’s this place exactly that most students chose.

And it goes with the people at brunch as well. When one person eats, another will get up to cook. When everyone is done eating, the dishes are all put away, the pans are all cleaned. With the wisdom of crowds, nothing needs to be said.

I think it’s amazing too.

Many years ago, I received an e-mail from a reader named Winston Rand, looking for some blogging advice:

Jeff,

I have been to your equivocality site numerous times over the last couple of months and always come away impressed. Having visited many other “blogs” – God how I’ve come to hate that term – I keep coming back to yours as my gold standard. Been thinking of starting my own, even have 2 domain names paid for, but being an engineer and an IT pro, I’m too hesitant to start until most of the answers are quite clear. That is a strength as well as a failing…

In my quest, I’ve looked at many different blogging tools, hosting sites, etc., and am still not sure which route to take. My temptation is to say to hell with all of them and just post my stuff using static html pages (Dreamweaver) since I’m not really interested in feedback or comments that much. But I do like the ability to easily integrate calendar, archives, and other features that most of the blog packages seem to include by default. And who knows, one of these days I may care what other people think of my work.

Among the popular packages, I’ve got it narrowed down to WordPress, Moveable Type, and SquareSpace, but I’m wide open to suggestions and recommendations.

Could you share your thoughts on what you use and recommend? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Keep up your excellent work! I look forward to seeing more of it.

I steered Winston towards Wordpress, and soon after, he started his own blog at nobodyasked.com. Over time, he developed a significant readership, as he would write quite lucidly about politics, humour, and the occassional geek talk.

Although our blogs covered different things in a different style (Winston called it “[spinning] in a slightly offset parallel universe” when describing my blog in his one-year anniversary post), we would check up on each other now and then.

During one of my last visits, I found out that Winston has died after a 38-hour illness and 3 surgeries. While I never really knew him in person, I still feel like someone close is gone.

And I wish I could explain why.

We used to have a code: I’d ask him “Hey Tom, you want to vandalize the graveyard tonight?”, this obscure line from an episode of Married…with Children.

If he responded with, “No, Jeff, that would be wrong” (the next line from the episode), that meant he’d agree to throw rocks into a little stream under an overpass during our grade 7 lunch break. When we were finished eating in the cafeteria, we’d walk to the stream with the remains of the hour, dressed in burgundy tie and pine blazer, heaving any appropriately sized rocks into the water. It was our goal to block the flow of the stream one day.

Sometimes we’d throw what was left of our lunches into the stream, and be rewarded with the glimpse of a solitary fish breaking the surface of the water and snatching a morsel.

By the time we returned to class, the sheen on my brogues would be replaced by a fine layer of dust from walking around in the gravel. I’d wear that dust proudly, because no one ever knew how it got there, a secret code between him and me.

Sometimes I check up on Tommy. Not that he knows. I wonder if we could be friends again. We lead two different lives, but that’s never stopped me from being friends with someone. Part of me is scared that he’s never changed, never grown out from the elementary school Tom I used to know — something all too common in my experience — and I’d just rather not know. It’s enough for me not to contact him.

But I still root for him, not because we used to be such good friends, but because I know that if he can make it, so can I.

I stopped going to therapy.

Because I feel like I’m fixed.

Not completely, but I’m at the point where I can recognize my problems, bad mental habits, and work towards fixing them myself. My anxiety — the reason why I went to therapy in the first place — is under control, and I’ve been delightfully drinking black tea in the mornings¹. No more suicidal thoughts either.

I asked my psychologist whether I could hang out with him outside of the sessions because I enjoyed his company so much on a personal level. From life to art to sociology, we would always stray onto a wide variety of other topics. Perhaps I found the human mind to be as fascinating as he did.

He told me that as much as he’d like to, his ethics wouldn’t allow him to do so. I brought up the option of going to someone else for therapy, so that we could be friends, but after a bit of consideration, I didn’t like that option either, because I really enjoyed working with him. On top of that, as he explained, he would be available to me if I ever required his services in the future. I won’t lie and say that it didn’t make me very sad, but I understood and respected his reasons.

So after my last session, we shook hands, and he said “I’ll see you when I see you. Take care”.

And he meant it.

1. Caffeine, along with many other things, used to trigger anxiety attacks in me. [↑]

I connect with Frédéric and Misun in two very different ways.

With Frédéric, we relate through our emotions, our drive, and the need to express ourselves. We also have a tendency to feel like outsiders, perhaps because we’re often judged or misunderstood. In this way we comfort each other, because it’s as if we feel less odd or alone.

Misun, on the other hand, is like my big sister. She cares about me, takes an interest in what I do, and gives me advice the way I imagine a sibling does. I can share my insecurities, my dreams, my feelings with her, as if I’ve known her my entire life.

Together, they encourage and support me, although never to the point of flattery. In this way, I know that I can trust them to be honest; something increasingly rare nowadays, as people hide behind smiles and empty words. When I’m with them, I feel like I’m wholly understood and accepted.

I always leave their house with a tremendous sense of hope, because they believe in me the way no one else ever has.

Having front row tickets to see Russell Peters means that you’re a fairly big target for being picked on.

Especially after Pat yells “WOO” amid an otherwise silent theatre when Russell starts to explain how Chinese people aren’t as cheap as Indian people. From that point, we were known as the “Wu” family, and he’d refer to us when talking to the Chinese crowd.

No one is off-limits though, and his ethnic jokes cover a spectrum of races as wide as the earth. I suppose that’s how he pulls off his particular brand of stereotyping comedy. Ottawa is an especially fitting place, where minorities mingle instead of segregate, and perhaps it’s exactly this reason that the crowd is so ebullient. It almost as if his set is written for us.

Afterwards, it was back to Pat and Jen’s for some conversation over hot chocolate from their Tassimo. A scoop of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream dropped into said beverage turns it into a yummy candy-cane hot chocolate, something I must explore further in the future.

I saw her there again. She was sitting in a corner of the coffee shop, head on the table. Last time she was still carrying her grocery bags. This time, there were no bags, no Dora The Explorer hat. Only a thin, hooded winter coat, and salt creeping up to the shins of her sweat pants.

Occasionally, she would prop her head up, as if to reorient herself to her surroundings, and her matted hair would fall about her face. She never seemed to notice. She was gone again.

But was she lost to the world, or was the world lost to her?

It was one of those days at work. Things weren’t exactly going wrong per se, but it was stressful enough as it was. People were all over me, wanting this or that, undermining my decisions, interrupting my conversations, running around like their heads were cut off.

I kept reminding myself to breathe deeply (from the feet, as the Taoist sages are often described as doing) and calmly, kept thinking about the word tattooed on my wrist, and it worked for a while.

By 3:15, I had to get out of the building. It was supposed to be a three-song walk, but it ended up being nine. I didn’t even bring my coat; I was burning so much inside, that I didn’t need it. The winter slushed creeped up my jeans by six inches, but thankfully no one noticed.

Tyler was leaving as I was stepping back into the office. He invited me to an art show at Bablyon tomorrow¹. I told him that I’d think about it, knowing in my head that I wouldn’t go.

I had to stay late to work on the server. Fifteen minutes later, Tyler walked into my office (he must have walked part way, then turned around) and asked if I was alright. Admittedly, I’ve never been able to hide my moods very well, but I thought I was doing a decent job of it². He told me he could feel that my energy was low, so he asked if I wanted a hug. I politely declined, not because I didn’t appreciate the gesture, but because I didn’t think it would have helped. He gave me a firm pat on the back anyway and stepped out of my office.

And it helped more than I ever would have expected.

1. Which is strange, because the last thing I went to see at Babylon was a Dwarves concert [↑]
2. Something of an old habit of mine. Not being able to hide my moods is often a blessing in disguise for me, because it communicates to people that something is wrong. Otherwise, they’d never know, and it would never be fixed. [↑]