Yearly Archives: 2005

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.

Mrs.

I point­ed out the only cute one to Shirley, and she teased me about it for the rest of the night. I only chose her because she had those glass­es and that look. She was the type before I dis­cov­ered dis­cov­ered that I have no type. Almost every time some­thing like this hap­pens, I real­ize that they’re almost twice my age, and I won­der if there’s any­thing wrong with me. The oth­er guys I know feel guilty cause they talk to girls who are some­times 10 years younger than them. I feel guilty cause I catch myself flirt­ing with women who are more than 10 years old­er than me. I feel even more guilty when they decide to wear their orna­ment­ed engage­ment rings when wed­ding bands would be more appro­pri­ate, or when they show me pic­tures of their kids.

In almost all my rela­tion­ships, it feels like I’ve been wait­ing for my girl­friend to catch up. The only one who seemed to be on par or per­haps ahead, was sim­ply fuck­ing nuts. To me, the only sav­ing grace was a mix of open-mind­ed vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to chan­nel this vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty into change, but most had one but not the oth­er. Perhaps I’m biased in believ­ing that a woman, not a girl, would have enough strength and expe­ri­ence to poss­es the prop­er mix of both. I real­ize that I’m prob­a­bly usu­al­ly wrong in this belief because most of the old­er men and women that I know are still very bliss­ful­ly igno­rant, and have become too old to change their ways (and this fact was a cause of a lot of my pre­vi­ous loss of faith in human­i­ty). Every now and then though, there’ll be one woman who stands out because I can read her like a book.

And she’ll be enough to keep my faith alive.

Critical Emancipation

Sometimes it feels like I’m wait­ing for inspi­ra­tion when I write. Like I’m wait­ing for a spe­cif­ic mood, or a spe­cif­ic song to come on and guide me through an entry. Lately, that inspi­ra­tion seems to avoid me. I keep try­ing to write about things that I feel I should write about, instead of the things I want to write about. Every time I search my head for the prop­er mood or mind­set, it’s only mem­o­ries that appear.

And they sur­face like pho­tographs, each one a still frame cap­tur­ing an expe­ri­ence, expressed in sound, warmth, light, and odour. I’m on the streets of Hong Kong again, sur­round­ed by peo­ple, brows­ing through the knick-knacky stores with the heat of the sun soak­ing through my shirt. I’m skat­ing on the Canal, map­ping the imper­fec­tions of the ice as I glide across them, the night sky burn­ing with the orange of win­ter. I’m won­der­ing through the mall of my home­town, enjoy­ing the strange famil­iar­i­ty of a place I fre­quent­ed so long ago, hop­ing I don’t bump into an ex. I’m in uni­form, clutch­ing the lapels of my blaz­er, as I step out from the heat of grandiose wood­en doors into the snow-washed quad. I’m on the bus to New York, try­ing to fig­ure out which pas­sen­gers are com­ing or going, won­der­ing where my own jour­ney would take me.

I fight against these mem­o­ries, try­ing to write about some­thing more rel­e­vant. In the end, I write about noth­ing, and I can’t fight against it any­more. I have to write the things I want, inspired by the things I think. I have to let go one more time.

From myself, instead of oth­ers.