Posts tagged with "parties"

Catan Catan Strip-Catan

We’ve start­ed mak­ing wagers in our mul­ti­play­er Magic games, small baubles or oth­er peo­ple’s prop­er­ty or an half-hour of labour1 to add anoth­er dimen­sion to the game­play. For a par­tic­u­lar three-way match, I anted my atten­dance at Catan Catan Strip-Catan cause I could­n’t make up my mind on going. Another busy week meant I was tired of being social — with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being naked in such a sit­u­a­tion, no less — but it still sound­ed like a night that should­n’t be passed up.

Settlers of Strip Catan

Socks are usu­al­ly the first to go, but the pair counts as one point. And Brandon isn’t play­ing, he’s just half-naked for rea­sons.

Tiana and Shawn teamed up on me, since they want­ed me to go more than they want­ed to win what I had offered. However, they’ve also been mak­ing me feel com­fort­able with myself late­ly (the cud­dles always help), so I was okay with being tack­le-out at some point dur­ing the par­ty. I end­ed up win­ning all my Catan match­es any­way, and nev­er need­ed to take off more than an accou­trement.

  1. Great when you need the dish­es done after a par­ty, but I’m more like­ly to take a mas­sage. [↩]

in the arms of men

My wit and my elo­quence are not at their best at this par­tic­u­lar moment, which is why I have no quick riposte to your rib­bing. All my humour is dry and self-dep­re­cat­ing any­way. It’s mak­ing me won­der if you think I can’t take an Asian joke or two. The truth is, I don’t know how to make fun of any­one but myself.

Too bad you’ve got piss tests com­ing up. We’ve got this bal­cony, the right occa­sion, and I don’t drink any­more. Doesn’t mean I can’t lis­ten to your war sto­ries, or dan­gle in the air when you give out bear hugs. Perhaps I’d be less awk­ward when it comes to such bond­ing if I was in high-school JV foot­ball. Seth made the team one year, and scored a touch­down for guys like us.

downtown Ottawa

I remem­ber you. Iain and I went to buy a $5 hit off your bong 10 years ago, back when we cut our teeth on prairie fires and five-cent wings and I’ll-nev­er-do-that-again. You were danc­ing to jazz by your­self in a beat­er and per­pet­u­al Kangol when we walked in, but you wore no shame on your face. The world is small when our lives are not.

Last time I saw Iain was at the house­warm­ing, but I still think of him every time I use those crys­tal glass­es he gave me that day. He would have want­ed them filled with some­thing tight-bod­ied and twelve-years old. Nowadays all I can take is a lit­tle Bailey’s on my Mayan choco­late Häagen-Dazs. Luckily they’re also per­fect for ice cream.

bachelor

I’ve long missed these nights. Breathing fresh air when step­ping out of a stuffy bar. That sud­den calm when com­ing out of the din. Big groups with the chance to change con­ver­sa­tions. Nights that have been replaced by din­ners with nuclear fam­i­lies and one-on-ones. Oddly enough, the only thing in com­mon are sto­ries of how one’s son is learn­ing to play with his dick. The world would have me believe that a man isn’t made by the drinks he orders but by the atten­tion he gives his kids.

If only I did­n’t have to go so soon. I’ve nev­er been to the peel­ers in Ottawa, and I can only imag­ine where my bills will end up.

a heavier dose

I’ve been try­ing to stay vocal about my needs, lest I fall back into old life traps and defence mech­a­nisms. It means I’m still apply­ing lessons learned from last year, still try­ing to be open even if it means being vul­ner­a­ble.

As far as I can tell, this has been work­ing in my favour. Otherwise, Seth would­n’t be com­ing over on Saturday to teach me how to play the acoustic ver­sion of Sean Rowe’s Jonathan, one of those songs I’ve always want­ed to learn before I die.

As a side-effect, it’s been a strug­gle to bal­ance my rela­tion­ship needs with over­stim­u­la­tion. The oth­er night we smoked an apéri­tif in the car before spend­ing three hours gorg­ing our­selves on all-you-can-eat sushi, learn­ing that the small but sig­nif­i­cant priv­i­leges of our class come in plates of bite-sized fat­ty pro­tein made to order. Then we watched the entire first sea­son of Tim and Eric, Awesome Show! Great Job, and played Magic until 4:30 in the morn­ing.

It left me burnt out and I must have lost two days, yet it still feels like I don’t have enough nights like that, shar­ing real moments with peo­ple who don’t per­pet­u­al­ly have some­where else to be or some­one else to see. I need more of those times in my every­day life, not just in the days marked on my cal­en­dar.

perpetual eve

This day is the same every year. The streets are dead and filled with slush, the stores all closed. No mat­ter where I am, it seems peo­ple are look­ing for a chan­nel on TV to watch a cor­po­rate-spon­sored count­down, and I always feel alone even though I’m sur­round­ed by friends.

If it’s the same every year, it’s strange that my mem­o­ries of New Year’s Eve are so mixed. Jocks harass­ing me on the bus. Bundling up in big coats to share petit coro­nas out­side. Panic attacks. Blonds and red­heads. Rich foods and too much drink. And some­how the peo­ple I love and the peo­ple I hate end up at the same par­ties.

Sometimes it reminds me too much of my child­hood. My fam­i­ly host­ed the same count­down par­ty every year that became the only real time we spent with oth­er peo­ple, and the only time we ever caught up with our “friends”. Numbers would be shout­ed in uni­son, cham­pagne would be toast­ed, noth­ing would change. An emp­ty rit­u­al for emp­ty peo­ple. Maybe that’s why I nev­er feel like I belong any­where on this day. It’s like I’m wait­ing to feel what every­one else around me is feel­ing when the ball drops.

Jason + Amy Wedding Day

Filmed anoth­er love­ly wed­ding.

There were lots of fan­tas­tic lit­tle details, espe­cial­ly in the way peo­ple inter­act with their hands, but my favourite moment is when the pas­tor does a lit­tle tilt, mim­ic­k­ing the kiss between the new hus­band and wife.