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.

I have to write this so I can admit it to myself.

I have to write this because I can’t think of anything else nowadays, except for how hard it is to get out of bed in the morning.

I’ve been reading a book my therapist recommended to me a long time ago, the one that deals with lifetraps. In one of the first chapters, it goes through each lifetrap by first explaining a “core need”, which is something a child should have in order to thrive. It goes through examples on how we should have been raised, and how a healthy mind will grow from that. Then it explains how the lifetrap may develop if that core need isn’t met, by giving examples of destructive childhood environments.

And for almost every lifetrap in the book, I saw my own childhood in those examples of destructive environments, such as the one about “Self-esteem”:

Self-esteem is the feeling that we are worthwhile in our personal, social, and work lives. It comes from feeling loved and respected as a child in our family, by friends, and at school.

Ideally we would all have had childhoods that support our self-esteem. We would have felt loved and appreciated by our family, accepted by peers, and successful at school. We would have received praise and encouragement without excessive criticism or rejection.

But this may not have happened to you. Perhaps you had a parent or sibling who constantly criticized you, so that nothing you did was acceptable. You felt unlovable.

As an adult, you may feel insecure about certain aspects of your life.

When I was reading that, all I could think of was one specific incident from my childhood. I was young enough that my mom would bathe me, and she would do it in the en suite bathroom of the master bedroom. One day, she came to dry me off with a towel, and both the bathroom door and the bedroom curtains were open. I told her to close the door, because I was self-conscious about being seen naked by the neighbours across the street. I was really upset about it, and instead of walking two feet to close the door, she laughed and said, “You’re no Tom Cruise”, and left it open. From that point, I’ve had this irrepressible feeling that I’m never attractive enough for someone to even be interested in seeing me naked.

And that was just one example. My childhood was filled with so many such memories, each one branching into other lifetraps.

I’ve never wondered why I have self-esteem issues. I fucking hate how self-conscious I am, because I know the extent of that self-consciousness isn’t normal. I’ve struggled with issues like that my entire life, and I can trace everything back to my parents. It fills me with rage to know that they damaged me to the point where I feel so overwhelmed by my flaws that sometimes I’d rather be dead.

If I were ever to commit suicide — and at this point I feel like I can’t rule out the possibility of this anymore — I’d say that my parents would be 55% responsible¹, with my mom sharing more of that blame than my dad.

I hope she reads this one day. I hope my entire family reads this. I hope all my cousin’s moms read this, because they usually try to defend her. I want everyone to know that if I die by my own hand one day, I blame my mom more than anything else in the world. I want parents to know that they have a responsibility to their kids because they’re people too, that they have to treat them properly, and that I was an example of what happens when you don’t.

This is starting to sound like a suicide note, and it’s scaring me. Good thing I’ve always been a rational person, and I still recognize that suicide is an irrational decision for me at this moment. Sometimes, I watch suicide videos just to shock myself into realizing how final, irreversible, and horrible that decision is.

I’m at a lot better than where I was two years ago, before I went to therapy, but I’m still far from being fixed. I can admit that to myself now.

1. The other 45% being my own inability to deal with these things, but I attribute that to temperament, which is inborn and hence not their fault. [↑]

In my last year of high school — which was also my first year at that school, so no one really knew me — I had a creative English class. We were given 15 minutes of free writing time at the beginning of each class, of which I mostly spent making verbal doodles to any kind of cinema stimulation I had recently seen at the time. Around then, it would have been quotes from Monty Python and lines from Casino. Anyone could put a CD in the stereo for everyone to hear, so one week I put my most recent mix in.

In the middle was Creep by Radiohead , and another guy in class suddenly exclaimed, “A great song!”, amidst the silence of our working minds. Everyone looked at him, then at me, and I felt a redness flush on my face.

That was followed by One by Metallica, and again he said, “Another great song!”, and the same chain of events happened as last time.

He was that edgy kid with bleached blond hair and always got in trouble for wearing walking shoes with his uniform. He did his own thing, had his own tastes, and fit in with the crowds he wanted, not necessarily the crowds that wanted him. I was that awkward kid who had no real friends, had a mop for hair, and a perpetually taciturn demeanour. To have him acknowledge my taste for two songs in a row had suddenly given me some kind of street cred because he was far more popular than me.

Some of the other kids started looking at me differently from then on.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(This first. Listen to the clarity of the lower octave notes that Regina adds in waves and waves at the end of the chorus; you can tell it’s a quality grand piano just from how those notes resonate — an upright would sound much muddier at the low end. This is the song that plays on day (408) and it’s fucking perfect. Also, title from the lyrics.¹)

It would appear that someone made a movie of my last relationship, and (500) Days of Summer is to #8 as Eternal Sunshine was to #4. The interesting part is that it was released early last year, during the relationship, and I wonder if it would have changed anything on my end, had I seen it then. And if she saw it now, would she understand things from my perspective? Or does she understand already? And if other people saw it, would they understand how one could unwittingly get their hopes up when things are so clear from the beginning?

I’m so glad Marc Webb, the director, treated the material with such grace. You can tell it was based on experience because the tender moments come from a real place (co-writer Scott Neustadter admitted Summer was based on a girl who “returned his kisses but not his ardor”). In an interview, Joseph Gordon-Levitt said, “I’ve had my heart broken before. Truly, truly broken. But when I look back at me in my heartbroken phase, it’s pretty hilarious, because it felt so much more extreme than it really was. One of the things I love about (500) Days of Summer is that it doesn’t make light of what we go through in romances [emphasis mine], but it is honest about it and shows it for what it is, which is often profoundly funny”, and I completely agree. I also appreciate the fact that they don’t villainize Summer because she never takes advantage of Tom², and at the same time, it doesn’t make the agonizing days he goes through any less significant or difficult. In a profound way, it brings justification to everything I was (or am) going through. I suppose I’m just waiting for the punchline.

Hah.

Watching it has left me feeling emotionally devastated lately, almost as if I’ve regressed, and lost months of progress. John says it’s because seeing it was like seeing her again, reliving the entire thing from day one, from when we had met in the office. Like a recovering alcoholic falling off the wagon and taking his first sip in 5 years. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the message, and as well as the recommendation to watch the movie from Darren.

Even though I’ve tried to completely forget and move on, I’ve come to learn it’s not that easy. It’s almost as if you have to accept the all the memories, both good and bad, as much as you accept your own qualities and flaws.

The days, months, years you spend with someone significant will inevitably change and shape you. To deny them is to deny yourself.

I found it fascinating to trace the plot developments to parts of my own story. The entries I’ve written over the last two years echo the sentiments so strikingly in dialogue, songs, and voice-overs.

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen, of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he’d never truly be happy until the day he met “the one”.

From my entry The Penultimate Letter — “My whole life, I looked for someone like you. Someone who was capable of raising me to my potential, someone who was worthy of the love I have to offer. But even then, I never knew I was capable of a love that resonated so deeply in my person.”

Continue reading

1. Or is it? [↑]
2. Ironically, the gender roles are reversed, and it’s Tom’s date who’s the voice of reason here. [↑]

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The first spot was a curve on her cheek near the corner of her lips. It would only appear when she was smiling a certain way.

I have this picture of her reclining on the chaise with her head thrown back on the pillow in laughter. It’s horribly composed, and I can hear her telling me how weird she thinks she looks in the picture, but it captured the expression perfectly.

The smile wasn’t particularly alluring. It was goofy even. But that’s what I loved about it. She was this angel, this siren, this muse to the world, and I was the only one who could see her like this; cheeks pulled back, giggling uncontrollably, burying her head in the pillow from self-consciousness whenever I pointed out the spot and tried to kiss it. I was the only one for whom she let her guard down, even if only for a passing moment. It was so adorable and intimate at the same time.

Usually, when people ask me why it was so special, I say “When it worked, it worked really well”.

What I really mean to say is,

“It was the way her kisses would travel down my spine. The way she wore her hair differently every time I saw her. The way her cheeks would round so endearingly when she truly laughed. The way she could look beautiful wearing dresses, or jeans, or my old pajamas. The way the tantalizing golden down traveled along her lower back. The way her body felt against mine when I pulled her close.

It was because she brought me green tea bubble bath when I was home sick for three days with strep throat. Cause she loved trying new things, like taro dumplings, and ha gow and sui mai and tofu flower, and bubble tea. Cause she would buy me bengal spice tea, and hand creams, and soaps, and flowers for no reason in particular.

It was because she liked taking photos of me too. Cause she would remember the things I wanted when mentioning them in passing so she could look them up and buy them for me later. Cause she truly appreciated the gifts that I gave her. Cause she spent so long preparing for my birthday last year, even though she knows I don’t celebrate it. Cause she helped me seek therapy for my anxiety issues. Cause she came with me to concerts when I didn’t want to go alone. Cause she loved The Mars Volta and Shane Watt as much as I do.

It was the way she could create so many beautiful things with her hands, using paint or chalk or toner or lead or metal or chocolate. The way she supported me and my photography. The way we would take turns choosing movies and watched them together, even though our tastes were so different. The way she got along with my friends and loved my cat.

In her, I had found the person I was looking for my whole life, and she held me captive every moment we were together.”

But I never do.

Tim was in town for a presentation this weekend, so a few of us went to dinner at a restaurant close to where he used to live. It turns out this place used to be called Drumlin’s Pub, which I knew from second year of university, ohhh…seven years ago? I distinctly remember being in there once, doing shots at the bar¹ while sitting next to an older guy who was over $30k in debt to OSAP, telling me to go after the bigger girls cause they do way more “stuff”. On our drinking tours of the city back then, we would always try to find a place that served good, cheap wings, and Strongbow. If I remember correctly, Drumlin’s had hearty honey garlic, but no cider.

Now that it’s under new management, it has a really generic name — like Sandy Hill Bar And Grill — though it makes up for this fact with much better pub fare. Such social opportunities are great for testing out the 360° surround capabilities of the Zoom H2 sound recorder I recently purchased as an investment towards better sound production in my videos.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

In his defence, Tim was surprised to discover that Jess has a new boyfriend, and was being (jokingly) self-deprecating about his sex life. Next at the table was Reagan², who was asked about hers. Jess picked up the mic and pointed it at me, perhaps to shift the attention away from Reagan and shield her from embarrassment. Of course, it all plays out much nicer when you have a recording of it.

1. Back then I drank with Iain, so it would have been tequila. [↑]
2. Note to self: pronounced “Ray-gun” [↑]

One time, she suddenly asked me, “Have you had sex with anyone else?”, which she used to imply as between the last time and what we were about to do. It was a valid question, since we’re both sensitive to the proliferation of Cupid’s itch and Venus’s curse.

I was insulted that she asked, because at the time I felt like sex with someone else would have been cheating on her. As uncommitted as the relationship was, she still had my heart, and consequently, other parts of my body as well. I’m also not like that, and it takes a lot before I decide to be intimate with someone. But at the same time, I was flattered that she thought I would or could, a little boost to my ego that is rarely ruled by machismo or testosterone.

“I haven’t either”, she reassured, which was something I naturally assumed of my modest muse, so it was of little comfort to me.

Sometimes, when certain songs come on, a tinge of jealousy will strike me.

I’ve been known to be very possessive about my music, because songs often mark my memories and experiences. These melodies I keep to myself mean much me, and I don’t share them with just anyone. A person has to be special before I let them hear it. They have to be able to appreciate the music. They have to deserve it.

I gave her my Eva Cassidy, Blonde Redhead, Vincent Gallo, Sia, Hooverphonic, Postal Service, Iron and Wine, Knife, Mars Volta, Shane Watt, and Scott Matthew. I let her in, I shared with her so many chords that stir up emotion in me, I rendered myself vulnerable, and now I can’t listen to some of them without thinking of her. It seems unfair that I gave her so much, that I sacrificed things I hold so dear and sacred in my heart, with nothing to show for it.

But when I hear Hide and Seek by Imogen Heap, I start believing that I’ve come out ahead.

One night, we sat in silence as she showed me this haunting video, and it moves me now as much as it did when I first heard Imogen’s ethereal voice filling my head with layers upon layers of haunting harmonies. Ironically enough, it’s been helping me through this period, because I feel like I’m not the only one who was starting to get comfortable, letting the dust settle, only to have everything change, and to discover circular indentations in the carpet where the furniture used to sit, the sun-bleached discolouration on the walls outlining places where pretty pictures once hung.

This song has made up for everything, not only because it brings comfort and company to me now, but because it reminds me that everything I did was worth it too.

Found this old video of back when I lived on Island Park in a 16th floor apartment, with Trolley and another person who shall remain unnamed.

Trolley looks so young! It’s not his face, just his hair that does it. And remember when I couldn’t stop listening to that AFI album? Seems like so long ago. I guess you’d only remember if you’ve been reading since 2004/2005, when we did stuff like this.

I wonder if I’m still too young to feel nostalgic. It seems like the only people who reminisce are those who are much older than me, but I already get nostalgic about my university days, when things were relaxed, I could sleep in, or skip class, and I didn’t have a mortgage to worry about.

I should be happy. Or feeling bittersweet, at least. On the one hand, I’m thankful to have had the chance to share so many things with her:

• listening to Bring Me The Disco King (Lohner Remix), as she sat curled in my lap in the darkness of my room
• runs for bubble tea before settling in for the night with a movie or two
• a road trip to Toronto, where I got to introduce her to my friends, Pacific Mall, and dragon’s beard candy
• parties at Pat and Jen’s, with board games, Rock Band, delicious food, amazing people, and general silliness
• moments like this
• looking into her eyes while our bodies were locked in blankets on the living room floor
• reading my favourite parts of The Prophet to her
• just the two of us going to dim sum on a beautiful Saturday morning, and introducing her to a medley of new dishes

But there’s one thing I regret, and that’s not being able to spend the night with her, for she had never slept over, you see. Sure, there were times when we stayed awake well past sunrise, with only the touch of hand and flesh as silent dialogue, my desire to prolong the pleasure driving my will to stay awake to every moment possible with her. Those are some of my favourite memories. But the sleep that eventually took us was only our bodies passing out briefly from exhaustion, and when we woke, she’d be gone soon after.

There are other things I wish I had had the chance to do while it lasted — sharing a relaxing bath, photography and video ideas, getting involved in a deep co-op game — but none of them were as important as a night spent sleeping together.

A long time ago, I wrote about how a girlfriend helped me figure out the importance of the night because of my earlier romances, and the situations that never let me share something as simple as sleep, the most intimate of intimates.

In a relationship, sharing the night is more important than sharing fluids. Falling asleep with someone is an acceptance of trust, a way of saying that we’re comfortable enough to drift into our subconscious minds.

Perhaps it was my fault for keeping her awake. I wonder now, if on one night, I should have let myself sleep, instead of letting our passion take us long into the next day.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a strip club. The co-workers of my first job, along with the president of the company, were the ones took me to my first. They made it a point to “initiate” me when they found out I had never been. I still look back on that memory fondly, because I was so young and green, and they wanted to get me over my inexperience.

But it was never something I did with any frequency. You always look at those guys, seating by themselves at the head of the table with a beer in hand, thinking, “Is this better than what you have at home?”

After all, strip clubs are never really about the girls. It’s about being out with your friends, when your parents think you’re at a movie¹. They’re like concerts. You could sit at home and listen to a CD with studio quality sound, but there’s something different about the atmosphere of a live experience.

It’s easy to grow past the appeal of strippers though. There’s no personality there. Even Playboy models have likes and dislikes. The furthest a strip club goes is by saying, “Here’s Porsche, and she used to be an airplane attendant”.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the female figure. But there’s no appeal in a stripper.

Continue reading

1. Some of them had ringtones set for their home numbers, and just the ring would set off a round of teenage spite [↑]

Jeff! Sooo many gurls with _ _ _ hair at grad!! Too bad…. Hee… Don’t u just love all the flash movies on our site?!? I’m sure U love them soooooo much! U hafta get back into sc man!! We need more ppl to play with! Hmm… wut do u think of the cartoons on our site?? There suppose to be me and teresa, her hairs colored _ _ _!!!! Don’t get any wrong ideas, or else i’ll have to do a lot more photo editing!

I found this shout-out from an old website of a friend. He made it in the last year of high school, which was a long time ago, seeing as how it’s been ten years.

The blank word is red. Yep. I went through a looooooong red hair phase with the girls. Not that it’s really over, as red hair is still a preference, only more subdued. And “sc”, that stands for Starcraft, which was a big game with everyone in our clique. We would go home after school, sometimes to each other’s houses, and battle each other online. We’d even go so far as to create scenarios of different units facing off against each other to analyze how effective they were in different situations.

It’s strange to read these words, because I was never really popular in high school, and certainly not popular enough for someone to give me props. Actually, I was a loner (which is why I got along with John, who was another loner) until the very last year when I changed schools, and met people who were a little more like me, and less offensive.

I don’t know why I enjoy old memories like this, or why they affect me so much. Maybe because I’m an introvert. It’s said that introverts go back to memories for stimulation. I’ve always found a distinct pleasure in reminiscing about old times, when I may have been more damaged, but more innocent too. It’s like innocence is the only thing you have no control over losing. As you grow older, you learn more about how the world works, and a once naïve optimism is replaced with the cold, hard realities of life.

You think of how nice it would be to have the mind of a child again, when your biggest worry was what to wear and whether she likes you, but you can never go back.