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gambler's fallacy

It’s my eleventh time here in four years, almost three times per. At this rate — con­sid­er­ing how sel­dom I get out nowa­days — it’s one of the only places I fre­quent. Each visit serves as a small time­stamp, from the year we went home with dif­fer­ent peo­ple to the year we went home together, and all the times caught in between among heavy snow and mechan­i­cal horses.

wedding name card

 

Strange how often I come here when it’s so rarely by choice. I always think I’ll be up next time, that I won’t be sit­ting by myself in one of these great halls, cause for­tune even­tu­ally smiles on every per­son who takes a chance on love.

small world

The drive to Toronto is get­ting eas­ier. It’s my only chance to really lis­ten to albums nowa­days1, not to men­tion the com­fort of see­ing famil­iar towns on the way, like the names of sub­way stops you can’t help but mem­o­rize as a child on the way home from school. And in a way, so many years later, Toronto still feels like home. Getting there is a jour­ney, but the peo­ple always make it worth it.

My patience tends to wear out about a quar­ter way in, when it becomes hard to main­tain a rea­son­able speed. It’s a test of whether I can drive safely to see how far I’ve grown as a person.

I fail every time.

Toronto view

The view from Alex’s down­town apart­ment. You can eas­ily tell Yonge Street apart from how brightly it’s lit.

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  1. Editors in both direc­tions this time, cause any­thing I lis­ten to nowa­days is Antje rec­om­mended. []

kitty considerations

It’s been four months since Leonard died. I remem­ber going to bed that night, con­stantly turn­ing over my pil­low to find a dry spot, sob­bing so much I couldn’t fall asleep.

The necropsy showed that he had a mas­sive liver and kid­ney infec­tion. My vet excused his lan­guage and said, “Shit hap­pens” when I asked (per­haps with a quiver in my voice) what I could have done to pre­vent it.

Soon after, he sent me a card offer­ing his con­do­lences, and said it was a plea­sure deal­ing with some­one who cares so much. It was prob­a­bly the best thing any­one could have done to assuage any feel­ings of guilt. That fact that Leonard had a stub tail with no signs of scar­ring makes me sus­pect that he was the runt of the lit­ter, likely born with a weak con­sti­tu­tion, but that doesn’t stop me from always feel­ing like I could have done more.

He was always so affec­tion­ate, almost to the point of being overly so. Every morn­ing he’d rub his nose on my face until I stirred, which would be extremely aggra­vat­ing if it weren’t one of the most seraphic ways to be woken up.

I remem­ber him sleep­ing with me one bright after­noon. Dolly decided to nes­tle her­self in the crook of my arm under the blan­ket, and Leonard soon joined us, though he decided to curl up on my neck instead. It was the per­fect nap configuration.

I’m still glad I had him, as short as our time was. It sad­dens me most to think that I never got to know what he’d be like as a mature cat, whether he’d keep his play­ful­ness and extro­ver­sion into adult­hood. At the very least, Heather and Sergey, Aaron and Trolley, Darren and John all got to meet him before he died.

Leonard at the Humane Society

I took this pic­ture of his Humane Society pro­file before head­ing over to meet him. They named him, “Elvis”.

I’ve been check­ing the Humane Society web­site for male kit­tens avail­able for adop­tion ever since. I recently found one with the right details and a goofy face too, but I don’t think I’m ready for another cat yet. I’m not sure I could han­dle it if the next one hap­pened to die so sud­denly as well. But I know that soon enough I’ll be itch­ing to adopt again, and that the idea of hav­ing another cat in my life will pre­vail over any worries.

the lives of songs

She told me she tried to find this album I used to put on when we were hud­dled in the dark­ness. The prob­lem was that she could only remem­ber the cover, and it was after we stopped talk­ing for the third time or some­thing cause oth­er­wise she would have asked.

Then she was in Chapters one day. This book of best albums of the 2000s fell down, and there it was, Ágætis byr­jun, open at the page. “What are the chances?”, she asked me.

Sigur Rós Ágætis byrjun

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I used to think of her lis­ten­ing to the songs I gave her with another guy and grow jeal­ous. But I could never say I didn’t have my own mem­o­ries asso­ci­ated with that album, lying between a wall and warm body on a bed swollen with cov­ers in New Jersey. I watched Jón Þór Birgisson sing into the pick­ups of his gui­tar, his ethe­real voice gen­tly mak­ing the strings trem­ble, in a sum­mer romance so long ago.

That was my intro­duc­tion to Sigur Rós, and in the same way I passed this album on to her. It made me feel so vul­ner­a­ble to be next to her in those moments (whether she real­ized it or not). Every time it came on was an emo­tional flash­back, a short-circuit to this part of my past about which I’ve told so few.

I used to hope she kept the songs I gave her to her­self, and that she didn’t use them to woo another guy the way I had always tried to with her. Perhaps I was a lit­tle pos­ses­sive about my music and some­what judg­men­tal on who I deemed to be deserv­ing enough to hear it. Eventually I real­ized that it’s not fair of me to feel that way. She had shared so many songs with me in turn, giv­ing me as much as I’d given to her, and I’ve since passed those songs on to others.

Now I won­der who else will even­tu­ally expe­ri­ence these songs, and what mem­o­ries of their own they’ll have when they hear them.

Sometimes I wonder if you're bored like me.

Sitting at home on a ran­dom night, caught between the com­fort of your room and the stim­u­la­tion of peo­ple. You once told me I could always call when I said I didn’t want to be a hyp­ocrite, but I don’t know if that’s true any­more. It’s been a while. I won­der if you ever think about me, and if you do, whether it’s with fond­ness, dis­taste, or indifference.

By now you’ve prob­a­bly fig­ured out that I can never be the one to pick up the phone first, which is why it’s hard for me to believe we’ll ever see each other again. I wish there was a way we could just talk, and not have things get com­pli­cated, and not have to worry about you or me or any­thing between us.

Sometimes I think I’m strong enough, but I think of that call and that voice and the burn­ing across my skin, and even­tu­ally I real­ize I’m only fool­ing myself. Just mak­ing excuses to see you again cause I miss you so much. I’m not yet used to the fact that I can’t share these songs, these expe­ri­ences, this hap­pi­ness with you, and it’s left me feel­ing incomplete.

Even now it feels like there was so much left unsaid. Like my words were always inad­e­quate to the bur­den of my heart cause I was never able to con­vince you of how spe­cial you were and how much I loved you. But time is teach­ing me that you knew, and that noth­ing would ever have been enough.

Not long ago, I real­ized it’s not just you I can’t stop think­ing about, it’s all of my past, from insignif­i­cant instances to major events. If only you weren’t one of the only things worth remem­ber­ing, and I wasn’t try­ing so des­per­ately to forget.

I hit a buck fifty on the way home before I realized it.

I was just try­ing to get away, to remove myself from the vul­ner­a­ble way I felt — the way you made me feel — among the din and the chill. That night I learned that beauty comes in many forms. I started believ­ing I could love again, and my wounds began to heal for the first time since she told me it all had to stop.

There was such a won­der­ful moment of vul­ner­a­bil­ity flick­er­ing across your eyes when you said we hooked up1, quickly as if to hide the fact, while plung­ing your fork into our slice of cake with a smirk on the side of your face. It’s moments like those that direc­tors dream off.

John wanted to know how it went. I told him not to ask, and we never spoke about it again. He thinks it’s because it went badly, but really it’s because every­thing went so well when I knew it was the last time I was going to see you.

Those were dif­fi­cult days. I always believed you could have saved me, until I real­ized that I needed to save myself. Not that it mat­ters. Things are dif­fer­ent now any­way. I have a ten­dency to say too much; all too often I mis­take open­ness for inti­macy, and it gets me in trouble.

I always imag­ine that you’ve fig­ured things out, and have been caught up in your own hap­pi­ness ever since. People like you were never meant to speak of heartbreak.

  1. Instead of the vul­gar we fucked or the pedes­trian we slept together. []

The Short Life of Leonard the Cat

The hard­est part was putting away his food bowls, and that ter­ri­ble sense of final­ity that he’d never be eat­ing from them again.

Spending so much time at home meant Leonard was in my com­pany for a large part of the day. I’m get­ting used to his absence, but I still miss the lit­tle guy.

I had a bunch of ran­dom footage and I never knew what to do with it, includ­ing a few moments from the first time I let him out of quar­an­tine into the rest of the house. When he died I kept watch­ing the footage over and over again until it sort of pieced itself together into this small vignette of a kitty who lived with me for less than three months. I hope they were happy ones.

returns

The only thing I bought in Britain was this tea can­dle shade of the London sky­line, found in a shop filled with baubles and knick knacks where Mike and Emma took me. They had a feel­ing it was my kind of thing. Funny to think that they knew me so well already in those three days. I love watch­ing the shad­ows dance across the shade in warm colours.

I went through an entire spec­trum of emo­tions there. Through all the won­der and excite­ment were still moments of weak­ness, gid­di­ness, sad­ness, and inse­cu­rity, because there are things you can’t escape by fly­ing to the other side of the world.

I’ve since set­tled back into my old life. The trip didn’t change me, not in any epiphanic way at least. It was more of an affir­ma­tion of myself and the way I’ve been see­ing things.

There were so many times that I was far out of my com­fort zone, thrust into inde­pen­dence, push­ing my lim­its, and that forced me to be objec­tive to keep my wits about me. In those objec­tive moments were objec­tive views of myself, where I began to under­stand that I was respon­si­ble for every­thing that was hap­pen­ing. For all the mem­o­ries and expe­ri­ences and footage and friendships.

And sud­denly, I real­ized, I like me.

Seagull

Watched an old crush get mar­ried today.

There wasn’t a hint of pre­ten­tious­ness in her face. She was never pos­ing, never reserved. Atop a sim­ple wed­ding dress — which she once told me her mom was sav­ing for her to be mar­ried in one day — she wore the taught smile that always scrunched up her cheeks.

Ten years later, and she still has the same hair: short, sandy, with curls parted in the mid­dle. She was one of those peo­ple who did all her grow­ing in high-school. By the time I met her, she was already the per­son she was going to be for the rest of her life.

And that was okay, cause she was already great.

hair of the dog

I wish Trolley was here so we could play Starcraft 2 like we did when we lived on Island Park. I’d set up my lap­top in his room — he’d have a beer and I’d have a joint — and we’d spend hours against some com­put­ers in Warcraft 3. Or he’d surf the web and lis­ten to music while I wrote in this blog, shar­ing the apart­ment with his kitty and mine.

Those were the sum­mers of No Motiv and Coheed and Cambria. The win­ters of Bel Canto and The Dears. I remem­ber being happy then.

I wish Aaron and Trolley were here so we could get really, really drunk, even though I don’t drink any­more. Only when I wake up in the mid­dle of the night, and all the thoughts I’ve been push­ing into the back of my head come claw­ing out, leav­ing me with a rest­less mind. I pour a glass of Bailey’s on the rocks and prac­tice scales until the alco­hol makes me fall asleep again.

One time, we went to the Honest Lawyer to cel­e­brate Aaron’s birth­day. In our drunken haze, we thought it’d be a good idea to order some pizza when we got back to my apart­ment (there was a pizze­ria right out­side the side door). Aaron hurled in the gar­den rocks as we were wait­ing for the order. We brought him in, and gave him a pil­low and towel cause he wanted to sleep in the bath­room. He told me later, “I only get that drunk when I’m really depressed”. Sounds good to me.

I wish my friends were here so we could drink like the old days, when we were between school and work, and women.

Everlong

I rarely think of the one who loved me most, even though she still thinks of me. This isn’t on pur­pose; it’s a sim­ple case of me mean­ing more to her than vice versa.

I’ve avoided such an unre­quited obses­sion with my last love. I stopped all con­tact, cut myself off from any­thing that’d pre­vent me from heal­ing or mov­ing on, and I’m proud of myself for hav­ing the strength to break such self-destructive habits.

But I can’t hide from my own mem­o­ries. When touched and inspired so sig­nif­i­cantly, one can’t help but remain for­ever changed.

Between the choice of giv­ing things a chance and los­ing me for­ever, she chose the lat­ter. So I won­der if she ever thinks of me now, the one who will always have loved her most, or whether I’ve just become another one of the wounded boys who stag­gered and fell so help­lessly against her graces.

Love, Eclipses, and Other Ephemera

365 days ago, you were sit­ting at a lit­tle round table in front of me. It was a cool day, with the light of the sun com­ing through big glass win­dows, and the way you were turned cast a shadow on the small dim­ple on your chest. How well I came to know that expanse of skin, never taken for granted by lips or fingertips.

I was filled with noth­ing but hap­pi­ness in that moment. By that point, I planned on mar­ry­ing you one day, as I had, per­haps a lit­tle fool­ishly, dreamed of build­ing a life with you. The only thing left was fig­ur­ing out how to con­vince you to dream a lit­tle bit too.

muse, turned

 

A few things have hap­pened since we last spoke. Nothing impor­tant enough to men­tion if I ever bumped into an old lover and tried to make small talk. Except, per­haps, that my grand­mother passed away, Aaron and Karen are expect­ing another child, and I started pur­su­ing a life­long dream of becom­ing an ama­teur astronomer.

In one class I learned the Sun’s dis­tance from the Earth is about 400 times the Moon’s dis­tance, and the Sun’s diam­e­ter is about 400 times the Moon’s diam­e­ter. It’s the fact that these ratios are approx­i­mately equal that causes the Sun and Moon to appear the same size when the three astro­nom­i­cal objects line up, cre­at­ing the effect we observe dur­ing a total eclipse. If the Sun were any closer, we wouldn’t see the fierce corona that bor­ders the shadow of the moon. Any fur­ther, and a ring of the Sun’s light would still be vis­i­ble. It’s a phe­nom­e­non that’s unique in our solar sys­tem, due to the sheer improb­a­bil­ity of these pre­req­ui­sites occurring.

eclipse

(I didn’t take this picture.)

Eclipses are a rare phe­nom­e­non. Total eclipses even more so; they occur every 18 months, at dif­fer­ent loca­tions, and never last more than a few min­utes as the shadow moves along the ground at over 1700 km/h.

Maybe this is why some peo­ple chase them, mak­ing pil­grim­ages to loca­tions where an eclipse is pre­dicted to hap­pen. One group even rented a plane and flew along the dark­est part of the shadow cast by the moon as it trav­eled over the Earth, and arti­fi­cially extended an eclipse from 7 min­utes to 74 min­utes. Which, in my book, is pretty awesome.

People who’ve been through an eclipse give sim­i­lar accounts of the expe­ri­ence; it looks like night in a mat­ter of min­utes, it feels like the heat is being sucked out of the ground, the ani­mals get all spooked out because they know some­thing extra­or­di­nary is happening.

But the Moon is also drift­ing away from the Earth at a rate of 3.8 cm a year, which means there even­tu­ally won’t be any more total solar eclipses. We hap­pen to be liv­ing in a time when we can still expe­ri­ence them, as future gen­er­a­tions will only have second-hand accounts from our best words and pic­tures. They won’t be able to feel the change in the atmos­phere, as the Sun hides behind the Moon for that brief moment. How for­tu­nate we are to be able to expe­ri­ence this event, which not only requires the heav­enly bod­ies to line up, but also requires us to be at the right place on the right planet at the right time.

sushi

 

I began to won­der what com­bi­na­tion of forces brought us there, to sit in the warmth of spring in a sushi shop down­town. Why fate had deliv­ered you to my office one morn­ing, for you to toss your head back and gig­gle and walk away after I made some corny joke at our introduction.

We were two trav­el­ing bod­ies on our own paths that hap­pened to align for a few spins around the sun. It was a beau­ti­ful acci­dent, a gaso­line rain­bow, an expe­ri­ence as spe­cial as it was serendip­i­tous that left me for­ever changed.

Every pic­ture I took was to cap­ture what I feared I’d never see again, and when our paths diverged, I kept look­ing at those pho­tos, won­der­ing what kept me drawn to these memories.

Then I real­ized it was because I didn’t want it to end. You were my eclipse, and I was a man on that plane, chas­ing a shadow.

Trying to live in your love a moment longer.

Next To You

Found footage, cap­tured with my small CCD cam­corder. It strug­gles in low light sit­u­a­tions, but when I brought up the lev­els in post, out came this amaz­ing grain that gives it such a wist­ful texture.

When watch­ing this, my eyes tend to grav­i­tate to her hands; the way she moves them with a light, but firm touch, whether it’s get­ting Dolly to sit down, or brush­ing cat hair from her nose. They were artists hands. Not par­tic­u­larly strik­ing, but filled with del­i­cate dex­ter­ity. Sometimes, I’d kiss the tip of each fin­ger, and she’d tease me by pulling her hand away before I could finish.

It must have been one win­ter morn­ing, after a run out to Second Cup with their holiday-themed paper cups, watch­ing The Blue Planet in the com­fort of a blan­ket with a cat by our side.

Only after find­ing this footage did I start to believe that my mem­o­ries were real, and not just imag­i­na­tions caught between the haze of desire and denial.

We existed. We existed.

Even if only for a few moments, as won­der­ful as they were fleet­ing, one of them cap­tured in 24 frames per second.

Predisposition

Thumbnail: My grandparents

When I was young and it was sum­mer, my mater­nal grand­par­ents would come from Hong Kong to babysit me. It was a strange time in my life, what I con­sider my fetal years when I don’t remem­ber learn­ing any­thing, or hav­ing any aware­ness of my own consciousness.

My grand­fa­ther was a strong, intel­li­gent, lov­ing, gen­tle man, and my biggest hero. He showed me his war wounds, and taught me about states of mat­ter. I even learned the term “civil war” from him when he used it (in English!) one time when some old black-and-white footage of Chinese bat­tles came on the TV, but his English wasn’t great so I thought he was say­ing, “zero war”.

He was my favourite per­son in the world because he gave me the atten­tion and stim­u­la­tion I never got from my parents.

In one of those sum­mers, I stole his cig­a­rettes, two at a time so he wouldn’t notice, and hid them in the com­part­ment of a red and white chil­drens draft­ing table. It was my way of get­ting him to stop smoking.

One time, I heard my grand­par­ents shout­ing in the kitchen. They were fight­ing. My grand­mother accused him of pee­ing on the toi­let seat. It was the first time I heard them raise their voices at all, let alone at each other. I thought it was strange because at that age I was prob­a­bly pee­ing all over the toi­let seat, and no one ever yelled at me for it, so I didn’t under­stand why it was such a big deal.

My aunt and uncle were over because they wanted to spend time with them, and they came to see what the com­mo­tion was about. But they just stood there, lis­ten­ing, not want­ing to take sides.

Eventually, my grand­fa­ther slowly bent at the knees, his entire body sag­ging, buried the heels of his hands in his eyes to rub out the tears, and said to my aunt and uncle with lan­guish­ing pauses, “Sometimes, she makes me want to kill myself”.

And I knew he meant it.

I was too young to even be shocked, but for my grand­fa­ther to say some­thing like that was com­pletely out of char­ac­ter. He was invin­ci­ble to me. I never under­stood it.

Until now.

Eventually, he went to live with my aunt and uncle for a while. They slowly became warmer when they saw each other a few weeks later. I don’t know if they ever talked about it.