Yearly Archives: 2009

Burning Twice As Bright

I seem to be writ­ing about only one thing late­ly.

In the day, there are rush­es of con­tent­ment amidst moments of clar­i­ty. Little things, like dri­ving on the high­way, feel­ing the wind ruf­fle my hair. Waking up to the fresh, cool morn­ing air that sig­nals the oncom­ing autumn. It all feels great, and for a moment, I can think of noth­ing else but how won­der­ful it all is.

The night is anoth­er sto­ry. The sky draws it’s cur­tains, leav­ing me with only haunt­ing mem­o­ries that turn vivid when the sun no longer wash­es them out. The dark­ness is only a reminder of the void she once filled with the very vibran­cy of her soul, and with­out her pres­ence to intox­i­cate me, I’m left feel­ing numb.

Jesus christ, I could go on and on.

I won­der why any­one would read all these ram­blings about love and loss. Isn’t it just the same shit over and over again? But love is the only thing I do well. Love is the only thing I know, and I can only write that which I know.

In time, I’ll have just as much to say in cel­e­bra­tion, but for now, I need to get every­thing else out of my sys­tem, stok­ing the fires of grief until I run out of fuel.

I made too much about you now to lie

Sometimes, I write these entries in my head over sev­er­al days, but when it comes to get­ting them on the screen, I can’t. Not because I don’t feel like it, but because the words come out with such dif­fi­cul­ty.

So I sit in my room with the lights off, hop­ing for some­thing to give me courage, some­thing to move my mute fin­gers.

Instead, I pro­cras­ti­nate. I buy myself time by play­ing a game on my iPhone, or surf­ing the net. It’s like I’m stalling, I’m build­ing up for a moment that’s no more impor­tant than any oth­er, like a ner­vous school­boy try­ing to ask his crush to the prom; pick­ing up the phone, dial­ing a num­ber, and hang­ing up again.

Maybe if I bury it after a bunch of incon­se­quen­tial thoughts — like how it’s hard for me to write about some­thing — then peo­ple will get bored and won’t both­er read­ing the rest. I try to con­vince myself that every­thing will be for­got­ten much quick­er than it took for me to write this. Nothing works, when all I’m try­ing to say is that every time I lis­ten to Letter Read by Rachael Yamagata, I imag­ine she’s lis­ten­ing to the same thing at the same time.

So some­times, you just have to say fuck it and write it any­way, even if you’re afraid and you can’t breathe, and put it out of your head that you’re left vul­ner­a­ble, that any­one could read it, that peo­ple know some­thing that you prob­a­bly should­n’t share, that you’re still think­ing about her when every­one is telling you not to, because none of it mat­ters when it’s the truth, and telling the truth is what makes you you.

No One Gets My Humour

Sometimes, my sar­cas­tic humour is so dry and sub­tle that peo­ple who don’t know me very well think I’m being seri­ous. I try to say things that are so ridicu­lous they can only be tak­en as a joke, but it does­n’t always work. Example:

Yesterday, Jairus made pulled pork sand­wich­es (took him 8 hours!) that smelled soooo good they made me hun­gry, even though I had just eat­en a huge din­ner. As we were watch­ing A Jihad For Love (about the coex­is­tence of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and Islam), Jesse said, “Too bad these Muslims would­n’t be able to enjoy this deli­cious pulled pork sand­wich”. I said, “Oh, cause it’s pulled”, in a tone like I had just real­ized some­thing, but what I thought was a jok­ing man­ner. Everyone turned their heads at me, Ian said, “Cause it’s pork, yeah”, and he lin­gered on that yeah real­ly slow­ly, like he was embar­rassed for me, then every­one turned back to the TV. I’m pret­ty sure they all think I’m an idiot now, and that I thought Muslims have some­thing against ani­mals when they’re slow-cooked in vine­gar sauce.

Working Hard and Playing Hard

Miric

Thumbnail: Barbecue
Thumbnail: Documentary night
Thumbnail: Karen and kids
Thumbnail: Strawberries and scones
Thumbnail: Stuffed animals

It’s been busy. Side work is going well, and I try to do as much as I can on week­nights so I can have my week­ends free.

It’s made for a rather hec­tic sched­ule, which is a wel­come dis­trac­tion at the moment. I feel great for being pro­duc­tive, and great for being able to relax. Time is fly­ing. I can’t believe it’s past the mid­dle of September already.

I use to bring my cam­eras with me every­where, but now I find I’m tak­ing few­er pic­tures. I want to be less of an observer/documentalist and more of a par­tic­i­pa­tor late­ly. I don’t want to miss out on liv­ing from wor­ry­ing if I’m cap­tur­ing every­thing as best as pos­si­ble.

Things iPhone app

One of the things that’s helped me main­tain my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is Things for my iPhone, which gives lit­tle alert badges on the things that are due. It’s a great moti­va­tor when you want to clear the alerts from your home screen.