I feel utterly intoxicated.

With a hammer and a ladder, we hung my pictures tonight, carefully deciding where to place each one to balance the colours, the orientations, the shapes, and the concepts.

Amongst the wine and the wood, the kids and the colours, we stopped to admire the art in the house. Adrienne dropped by to share her latest graphic poems with us, along with her alcoholic findings. “From The Desk Of” Penelope was written that day, dense and deep, full of details taken for granted. The words must write themselves, I thought.

Misun and I seem to share a kinship through our appreciation of expression, something I’ve never had with my friends. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, but I’ve always felt like they can’t relate to me when it comes to emotions or creativity. As I seem to be the creative brother she’s always wanted, and she seems to be the supportive sister I’ve always needed, we agreed to be adopted siblings.

In a recent interview, Frédéric said, in his ebullient Parisian accent, that one of the reasons he wanted to open the Salon is to promote dialogue and interaction. Perhaps it’s this hunger for dialogue that connects us. He also mentioned to me he was stressed out about being interviewed; being put on the spot made him freeze up. I told him I had the same problem with pretty girls. “You’re affected by beauty”, he said, something I knew, but not something that everyone understands.

I left, feeling like I was a part of something wonderful, something greater than myself.

Went home for the weekend, spent it with Darren. It was a gloomy few days; cloudy, humid, and generally uncomfortable.

At one point, Darren asked me if it felt like home, or whether my apartment here has taken the role. I couldn’t really answer him at the time. I just knew that they feel different. We lit up in a park that I used to play in while I was still in elementary school, and it felt odd to be stoned in a beautifully empty playground in the middle of Saturday, surrounded by all these upper-middle class houses with their pools and patios. Places that aren’t comfortable, but familiar.

A weekend of relaxation and intoxication.

The first time that I’ve known Pat to be Jen-less, he calls me up, wants to hang out. Fucking cool. We go for the breakfast special at a Greek Souvlaki house, he takes the sausage, I take the bacon. After, we head to the table tennis club (something I hoped he’d do for a while now) for a few matches. He beats me 5–1, and I find out that he’s running on three hours of sleep. He goes home to run some errands, I go home to sleep. He comes back here to meet up with me and Trolley, after cooking some burgers on his grill and putting together fixings, corn-on-the-cob, and pasta salad. We eat, watch some Harvey Birdman, play games for eight hours. Part and crash.

Today, wake up with my cat stretched out on my pillow. Trolley and I head to the table tennis club, play for an hour, head downtown to buy a few albums. The weather being so nice, we go to the Highlander with their distracting uniforms, and sit down for a pint on the patio. Clink. Come back, and I get to organize while listening to my new Modest Mouse album.

Don’t want to lose this feeling.

A little while ago, John informed me that he sent me a package and that I should be expecting something to arrive. I wasn’t home when it came, so it was sent to the nearest, “most convenient” mail hub, further south and downtown, which was a little out of the way, really.

A few days later, I decided to make a trip downtown to retrieve this package. There was a post-work session before I headed out, and I was peaking by the time I got to the bus stop. Admittedly, I was a little excited, because gift-giving is completely out of John’s nature. What could he possibly have sent me? I wanted to find out myself so I never asked him the details.

It rained the entire day, but the precipitation stopped by the time I was outside. The sun was still out, and turned the sky a hazy purplish-red, almost as if the entire world had been through an apocalypse, save one Canadian city. The pavement was still wet and buildings were streaking with their dark colours stretching towards the ground. I started seeing geometry, shapes, lines patterns, movement matching up as I passed. Everything turned into puzzle pieces, aligning themselves before me.

And on the way back, I sat on the bus with my package next to me, unopened, anxious to get home.

Black then white are all I see in my infancy.
Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me,
Lets me see.

—Tool, Lateralus

Inhale.

Colours are washing over you. Drifting, shifting, twisting, changing. No point of focus, no solid shapes. You feel the contrast and graze the answers.

And this takes you to a place you’ve never been, but always dreamed of. Where you’re bathed in happiness, and you can see the warmth of the light. When you hear nothing but stillness, and feel nothing but contentment.

And this picture in your head is as real to you as your heartbeat. You become lost to this world when your eyes roll back and your head tilts backward.

Let me take you there.