Yearly Archives: 2012

old heroes and new lives

My entries used to be filled with so many details, moments, thoughts, and emo­tions. I used to believe every­thing I wrote was impor­tant. Not that I was ever a par­tic­u­lar­ly good writer, only a per­son try­ing to be hon­est with him­self, and that was the way for me to sort out the things in my head.

Now that need isn’t there any­more. Instead, I write to keep track of where I am, know­ing that in time I’ll be won­der­ing how far I’ve gone, and let my pic­tures fill in the blanks.

Banc Sushi and cleavage

On my birth­day, Lisa treat­ed me to all-you-can-eat sushi at my favourite restau­rant, and cleav­age.

The new Leonard Cohen biog­ra­phy is out and Genevieve tells me it’s amaz­ing, or at least a great deal more infor­ma­tive than the course we took last year at Ottawa U about the birth of the roman­tic trou­ba­dour. I used to be com­plete­ly obsessed with this man, but now I can’t remem­ber the last time I put on one of his albums for a straight lis­ten through. I knew he was com­ing to Ottawa this Friday before tick­ets went on sale, but nev­er both­ered try­ing to get my hands on one, even though it used to be a goal of mine to see him per­form live before the booze and sex took him like a true rock­star. He rep­re­sents a part of my past I hard­ly relate to now, and it’s left me feel­ing like I need a new hero (who has some very big shoes to fill).

birthday boy

Little boy’s birth­day par­ties involve a lit­tle less sexy and a lot more chaos.

I have so many friends with their paths set out for them over next 20-odd years cause of jobs and kids, yet just as many who’ve arrived at adult­hood and are now won­der­ing what’s next. After find­ing a career, buy­ing a house, and get­ting mar­ried, they’re learn­ing that these were goals they nev­er want­ed for them­selves, only things peo­ple have always been telling them they should have. Now they’re won­der­ing where to go from here, and how to find a true sense of ful­fil­ment.

I went through the same cri­sis years ago, but feel no less uncer­tain about the future at this point. It’s only nat­ur­al to go through con­stant cycles of strug­gle and res­o­lu­tion if we’re deter­mined to grow and improve, not to men­tion the curves life tends to throw at us. I’m start­ing to view it with a sense of free­dom instead of doubt.

creature comforts

Thank you win­ter for mak­ing my cats super cud­dly and slow-falling snow and the chance to wear new cardi­gan-dress shirt com­bos. You are total­ly worth the has­sle of hav­ing to warm up my car (for now). It’s because of you that I learn how trust is found in the gen­tle coo­ing of girls who fall asleep on your shoul­der.

Mornings are spent upstairs in the break­fast nook, now that I have work I can get done on my MacBook Pro. To be bathed in the cool sun­light reflect­ing off the snow was a change of pace I nev­er knew I need­ed.

birthday brunch

Jesse’s birth­day brunch at the Lieutenant’s Pump.

I’ve been liv­ing with­out any sort of sched­ule. It’s nice to be able to make my own hours cause I’m far more pro­duc­tive at night, but it also makes my life free of the struc­ture that keeps me paced and bal­anced. The only rea­son I have to keep any sort of reg­u­lar sleep­ing pat­tern is so I can be awake when my friends are.

Still, I tend to stay up past the point of exhaus­tion so I don’t get stuck in an end­less cycle of thought when try­ing to fall asleep. Otherwise, the cider always helps.

sneaky cat

Soon, hunger will over­take the fear of pun­ish­ment.

It’s one of those weeks where I’m feel­ing antsy cause I don’t know when I’m see­ing Lisa next and I haven’t heard from her in a while. I don’t pur­sue the issue cause she has her own life, and I have so much to do that it works out any­way, but that does­n’t make me miss her any less. Our time is spe­cial cause there are so many things I share only with her, our exclu­sive lit­tle club for Breaking Bad, cat walks, and super hot­ties.

It feels like I only talk about my friends late­ly. Probably cause that’s what my life is filled with now. They’re the good that’s come out of the bad, the ones who picked up the ball when oth­ers let it drop. They val­i­date me and notice what I wear and lis­ten to me cause they believe what I’m say­ing mat­ters. And at the very least, they’re a chance for me to care about some­one else.

makeshift wings

I’m ready for the win­ter. To be reborn with the first snow­fall that cov­ers the grass, awash in muf­fled seren­i­ty.

Time is mea­sured in weeks, not by the cycle of day and night, and this makes every­thing pass at a blis­ter­ing pace. The good weeks involve bacon break­fasts and peo­ple bring­ing me food and new projects and Magic nights. The bad ones involve bat­tles with my old arch neme­sis, acne, and his side-kick, scar­ring-on-my-fuck­ing-nose.

I’ve been deal­ing with this over­whelm­ing sense that any­thing can change. So much has left me feel­ing like there’s no cer­tain­ty any­more. Maybe that’s why I’ve stopped dream­ing. I have no idea what to expect from the future, and I don’t know if that scares me or gives me hope.

To stop myself from think­ing about it too much, I dis­tract with all the right things and few of the wrong ones. It’s a frag­ile form of sta­bil­i­ty. Some days, the strings, they don’t do enough.

thoughtful things

I’ve always believed the best gifts are things we would want but would­n’t buy our­selves cause we could­n’t jus­ti­fy the pur­chase (regard­less of how much it costs), or some­thing hand­made by the giv­er. Good gifts also hap­pen just because, not nec­es­sar­i­ly due to a birth­day or hol­i­day. Lisa says this ide­al makes me an intim­i­dat­ing gift-giv­er. ____ used to call me a pro­fes­sion­al con­sumer, cause I have a ten­den­cy to pur­chase what I want with­out hes­i­ta­tion, which I imag­ine makes me even hard­er to shop for.

Recently, peo­ple have been giv­ing me awe­some things for absolute­ly no rea­son at all, and each gift is thought­ful, prac­ti­cal, and just my taste. It must be real­ly hard to find presents that will make me hap­py, but that just makes them all the more spe­cial when they do.

cat stuff

These were in my mail­box one night. The event was actu­al­ly a strip-spelling com­pe­ti­tion, and Shawn won “best strip­per”, the reward being the CD of cat purring. The oth­er guy won the “best speller” award and got the book. They had to fol­low him out of the cafe and ask him for it, cause it was total­ly meant for me obvi­ous­ly. Shawn has said I’m a cat for as long as I’ve known him.

double wall mini tea cups

I had tea with Heather G in a cafe last win­ter, and we had a con­ver­sa­tion about design and how sat­is­fy­ing it felt to hold these mini teacups. Somehow, she remem­bered and found them and bought me a set. They’re mouth-blown so each one is unique, and insu­lat­ed by dou­ble-wall borosil­i­cate glass.

book safe

Lisa got me this book safe, made out of an edi­tion of Ernest Hemingway’s Selected Letters, for secrets big and small. The choice of what book to use in mak­ing a book safe is very impor­tant, as it has to blend in with a library col­lec­tion, but also not be so recent or inter­est­ing as to make some­one pick­ing it up.

It has lit­tle mag­nets embed­ded in the frame and cov­er to make sure it stays closed even when stored ver­ti­cal. This lit­tle detail was what swayed her deci­sion to go with this par­tic­u­lar crafter, and some­thing you learn is very impor­tant if you ever try to keep your stash hid­den from…uhhh…cats.