Monthly Archives: March 2005

Meet Me In Montauk

I admit that some movies, some scenes, some songs, some moments, still rub me the wrong way. In gen­er­al this is a good thing: the hard­er it is to let go of some­thing, the bet­ter the expe­ri­ence it was. I’m also giv­en hope in under­stand­ing that these things will pass, as all things pass, and every­thing will be put in its right place. Fortunately, this is easy to accept because of the fact that I’ve already gone through a full cycle with oth­ers. Perhaps I’ve also become accus­tomed to some resid­ual emo­tions, kept alive by the mem­o­ries of the ori­gins of lessons learned.

But all of this still does­n’t detract from the fact that some things still rub me the wrong way, as if my skin was peeled and every con­jured sen­sa­tion was a salt water burn. I can feel that sound in my ears, feel the pris­mat­ic danc­ing of light in my eyes, feel her say, “pris­mat­ic”, explain­ing the colour of her hair.

It’s not even the per­son with which I share these expe­ri­ences that makes it impor­tant, it’s the expe­ri­ences them­selves, because they mean some­thing. A change in my life. A change that may have not have hap­pened oth­er­wise.

And I real­ize that it’s not that I can’t let these mem­o­ries go, it’s that I choose not to.

Tastes Like Purple

When I’m eat­ing from a bag of can­dy with assort­ed flavours, I always have a favourite. For exam­ple, the red Skittles in the orig­i­nal flavours, or the Creme Eggs in a Cadbury Assorted Bag of mini eggs (which has WAY more of the less favoured Dairy Milk and Caramel Eggs, I sus­pect on pur­pose). The weird thing is that I still enjoy the oth­er flavours just as much. Every time I get one, I see it as an invest­ment towards the end of the bag, when a glo­ri­ous explo­sion of my favourite flavour awaits to tit­il­late my taste­buds.

Heavy Snowfall Warning

Winter view from my apartment

A strong Alberta clip­per will track south­east over south­ern Ontario today into upstate New York tonight. Snow heavy at times has spread right across the Ottawa Valley into Québec and will con­tin­ue through­out the day.

Snowfall rates have often been 2 to 4 cm per hour with this very strong clip­per.

Freezing rain and ice pel­lets have moved into the St Lawrence Valley area east of Brockville late this after­noon. A sharp Arctic cold front will blast through the regions this evening as the clip­per sails into north­ern New York state. Temperatures will plunge up to 10 degrees to well below freez­ing with­in the first hour after the front goes through. As a result: rain in the regions east of Lake Huron and south­east of Georgian Bay will change sud­den­ly over to snow or flur­ries with untreat­ed sur­faces quick­ly becom­ing icy and very slip­pery.

Elsewhere the snow and freez­ing rain will pull out of the regions this evening as the clip­per and sharp Arctic cold front moves into north­ern New England and south­ern Québec. Snowfall amounts of 15 to 20 cm are like­ly in the snowsqualls along with white­out con­di­tions from blow­ing snow.

Dangerous trav­el­ling con­di­tions are expect­ed due to very low to at times nil vis­i­bil­i­ty in heavy snow blow­ing snow and icy con­di­tions. All trav­ellers should exer­cise extreme cau­tion and adjust plans accord­ing­ly.

My most vivid mem­o­ries of the spring are from high school. About a month before exams began, every guy would start spend­ing a min­i­mum of thir­ty min­utes look­ing out the win­dow every day. On the south­ern side of the main build­ing would be a small foot­ball field, and two soc­cer fields, as well as the ten­nis courts, hock­ey rink, and large swim­ming pool. Three more fields used for var­i­ous oth­er sports, such as lacrosse, crick­et, and field hock­ey, could be seen on the west­ern side. At the north was the base­ball dia­mond, as well as the small pool, and more ten­nis courts. The main gates of the school prop­er­ty, what many con­sid­ered a tri­umphant walk away from the main build­ing after a day with no spares, was at the east.

What male teenag­er would be think­ing about any­thing but run­ning through the wood­en halls, throw­ing off their tie, and rolling in the lus­cious­ly green, well-man­i­cured grass? In a school with a lack of females, no less. Add to the fact that a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of alum­ni pride is put into a well-fund­ed sports pro­gramme, and the result was class­es of boys bot­tling testos­terone, encour­aged by teacher and coach alike to be released in the form of phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. (I find sports metephors very use­ful for mak­ing veiled sex­u­al ref­er­ences.)

I could see it in every one of them, how dif­fi­cult it would become to con­cen­trate in class, instead of imag­in­ing how the hours after school were to be spent. But it was nev­er like that for me. While every­one else was wait­ing for the fields to thaw, I’d be wait­ing for the snow the fall. It’s days like these that make it hard for me to con­cen­trate.

All I want to do is stay at home wrapped in a blan­ket, watch the snow col­lect, and write.

Second-Hand Compliment

Sometimes, a sec­ond-hand com­pli­ment is bet­ter than a first-hand one. It means that there’s some­thing the com­pli­ment giv­er does­n’t want one to know, as if it’s a weak­ness. Of course, one should always ques­tion how some­one comes across this infor­ma­tion, and their motives for let­ting one know what oth­ers may con­sid­er a secret that can be used against a per­son.

Sick Of This Place

I switched from day-old crème brûlée to calo­rie and sug­ar-free sparkling sum­mer peach bev­er­age. The week­end usu­al­ly has me drink­ing var­i­ous com­bi­na­tions of liq­uids, includ­ing hon­ey water and cof­fee with half and half. It’s dif­fi­cult to under­stand how nor­mal it becomes to alter­nate between drinks while under the right influ­ences, like only being able to take a swig from a bot­tle of vod­ka dur­ing a hang­over. Sobriety makes the sens­es aware.

This place has become sick and unin­spired. I miss liv­ing at Lees, with the edge of the down­town core, as well as my uni­ver­si­ty, out my 8th floor win­dow. I do have a nicer view here, espe­cial­ly since I’m liv­ing on the 16th floor now, but it’s not on my side of the apart­ment. What I see is most­ly con­struc­tion, aggra­vat­ing colours, and unmatch­ing wood grains. I put on dif­fer­ent movies to absorb their moods.The raw, open-air feel­ing of 12 Monkeys. The emo­tion­al, effu­sive set­tings of the every­day in Bleu. The psy­che­del­ic adven­tures of Army Captain Benjamin Willard through the humid jun­gles of Vietnam in Apocalypse Now. Nothing ever works.

I can’t wait to move. I can’t wait to give my room the per­fect mood. I can’t wait to get a nice, sleek desk. I can’t wait to cre­ate three per­fect lev­els of light­ing. I can’t wait to have a place where I can com­plete­ly relax, sur­round­ed by the com­fort­able feel­ing of a well fur­nished room.