Monthly Archives: July 2011

everybody's gotta learn sometime

It’s strange to feel like I’m ready for a rela­tion­ship at only this point in my life. It did­n’t seem right that any­one should love me if I did­n’t love myself, and that did­n’t real­ly start until recent­ly.

It also took a good round of ther­a­py to fig­ure out that I was sab­o­tag­ing my rela­tion­ships so no one could have the chance to hurt me. If I con­sid­er which ones would have worked out had that not been an issue that caused me to break up with my girl­friends in order to pro­tect myself, I can only think of one. But that was a long time ago, and while we may have worked then, it’s no guar­an­tee for the peo­ple we’ve become, as I’m sure there’s been a lot of growth on both our ends. It’s only now that I feel like my per­son­al evo­lu­tion has reached a peak, a place where I’m sat­is­fied with who I am, and there won’t like­ly be any more dras­tic changes that may affect the dynam­ics of a rela­tion­ship.

I’ve been able to rec­og­nize that the risk of get­ting hurt is insep­a­ra­ble from the trust we place in the peo­ple we love, and that risk is always worth it. I’ve left behind my bag­gage, some­thing no one else should have to deal with, and I’ve had enough expe­ri­ence to know exact­ly what I’m look­ing for in a rela­tion­ship and what kind of peo­ple work with me.

Took me 30 years to fig­ure it all out, but every­body’s got­ta learn some­time.

the charms of our idle dreary days

Don’t have much to say late­ly. Sometimes I get stuck at the title.

I’ve been hold­ing off on start­ing var­i­ous class­es cause I’m not quite into my reg­u­lar pace of life. I’m still rid­ing the crests of over-stim­u­la­tion from my trip, not yet ready to be rou­tine­ly see­ing peo­ple. Consequently, this means I lose sense of time, week­ly class­es once being my anchor points for cer­tain days of the week.

Ottawa balanced art sculptures/Sculptures en Pierre Équilibrée

 

I always look for­ward to grey and drea­ry days, when it’s the per­fect excuse to stay inside and just tin­ker on the gui­tar.

I nev­er feel lone­ly any­more. I’m too com­fy in the house, too occu­pied with this sense of hedo­nism, too busy pour­ing myself into my projects, too spoiled by life I’m liv­ing, too blessed by the cards I was dealt. Sometimes I end up park­ing my car at a strange angle one could nev­er hope to repli­cate, and I’m sure this is how my neigh­bours can tell I haven’t been out in more than a week.

Hintonburger

The Hintonburger: a six ounce hand­made local beef pat­ty with bacon, cheese, sig­na­ture bar­beque sauce, and fuck yeah.

All I ever want­ed was a lit­tle bit of peace. Now that I’ve found it, I’ve stopped think­ing about the future. Right now is good enough.

warm divinity

Music sounds so good. It’s like every­thing has a beat I can dance to.

Sometimes I start writ­ing an entry based on notes from a few weeks ago, but I end up dis­card­ing most of them cause I don’t feel the same way any­more. It’s like I’m con­stant­ly shed­ding skin in the words I delete.

I tend not to over-think things now. My deci­sions are based on what I want at any spe­cif­ic moment, instead on the future, or the con­se­quences, or what may hap­pen as a result. This regres­sion has been one of the most impor­tant (and dif­fi­cult) things I’ve learned to do. It feels like I’ve been going in the wrong direc­tion for 30 years, but at least I was able to fig­ure that out before much longer. Now I under­stand Picasso when he said, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life­time to paint like a child.”

Pat grilling

Pat on his new grill. He’s still fig­ur­ing out the hot spots.

I don’t even prac­tice gui­tar any­more, but I’ll put on a song I’m addict­ed to and pre­tend I’m play­ing with my favourite singers for hours. It’s not help­ing me improve (which is usu­al­ly what I enjoy), but by god is it fun.

The weeks lead­ing up to my trip were full-tilt cause I could­n’t stand being by myself. It was nev­er that bad before. I even bought an iPad app that lets me watch ran­dom web­cams from around the world, just so I could have some­thing hap­pen­ing live next to me, even if it was two-thir­ty in the morn­ing. Usually it was a buf­fa­lo chips restau­rant in Florida with mus­tard table­cloths, a beach resort by the sea in Italy, or an over­head cam of a sushi chef in Tokyo1.

Nowadays, I don’t mind the soli­tude or the com­pa­ny. I’m feel­ing unwound and have set­tled into old habits; not get­ting enough sleep, eat­ing at the wrong times, nev­er going out. The main dif­fer­ence is that I get so much less of ____ nowa­days, which means I feel so much more alone, but I’m strong enough to be okay with that now.

The days are bright. Like a boy, I find it hard to con­cen­trate on work when the sun fills the house with warm light.

  1. This is how I learn that sushi chefs puree wasabi using only a chef’s knife and a great deal of patience. [↩]

kitty considerations

It’s been four months since Leonard died. I remem­ber going to bed that night, con­stant­ly turn­ing over my pil­low to find a dry spot, sob­bing so much I could­n’t fall asleep.

The necrop­sy showed that he had a mas­sive liv­er and kid­ney infec­tion. My vet excused his lan­guage and said, “Shit hap­pens” when I asked (per­haps with a quiver in my voice) what I could have done to pre­vent it.

Soon after, he sent me a card offer­ing his con­do­lences, and said it was a plea­sure deal­ing with some­one who cares so much. It was prob­a­bly the best thing any­one could have done to assuage any feel­ings of guilt. That fact that Leonard had a stub tail with no signs of scar­ring makes me sus­pect that he was the runt of the lit­ter, like­ly born with a weak con­sti­tu­tion, but that does­n’t stop me from always feel­ing like I could have done more.

He was always so affec­tion­ate, almost to the point of being over­ly so. Every morn­ing he’d rub his nose on my face until I stirred, which would be extreme­ly aggra­vat­ing if it weren’t one of the most seraph­ic ways to be wok­en up.

I remem­ber him sleep­ing with me one bright after­noon. Dolly decid­ed to nes­tle her­self in the crook of my arm under the blan­ket, and Leonard soon joined us, though he decid­ed to curl up on my neck instead. It was the per­fect nap con­fig­u­ra­tion.

I’m still glad I had him, as short as our time was. It sad­dens me most to think that I nev­er got to know what he’d be like as a mature cat, whether he’d keep his play­ful­ness and extro­ver­sion into adult­hood. At the very least, Heather G and Sergey, Aaron and Trolley, Darren and ____ all got to meet him before he died.

Leonard at the Humane Society

I took this pic­ture of his Humane Society pro­file before head­ing over to meet him. They named him, “Elvis”.

I’ve been check­ing the Humane Society web­site for male kit­tens avail­able for adop­tion ever since. I recent­ly found one with the right details and a goofy face too, but I don’t think I’m ready for anoth­er cat yet. I’m not sure I could han­dle it if the next one hap­pened to die so sud­den­ly as well. But I know that soon enough I’ll be itch­ing to adopt again, and that the idea of hav­ing anoth­er cat in my life will pre­vail over any wor­ries.