Yearly Archives: 2012

reduction

Heather G made reser­va­tions for us (and Sergey) at the Back Lane Café last week. We had­n’t seen each oth­er since the sum­mer, before they were home­less 1 and I start­ed recov­er­ing. Last time I saw her, she left me with a take­out Hintonburger and a med­i­ta­tion audio­book that she hoped would help me feel bet­ter. It was so sweet that she did­n’t under­stand at all what I was going through, but tried so hard to help with very thought­ful gifts any­way.

This time, she would­n’t let me pay, even though she treat­ed me last time as well, and she said please with such heart­felt intent that I knew she’d be hurt if I did­n’t give her the hon­our. We’d been play­ing phone tag for weeks up to that point, and between their careers and camp­ing, they could only spare them­selves for a meal sans tea or dessert. It made me real­ize how pre­cious their time is nowa­days, and the fact that they made the time to see me meant so much more than the two hours we spent catch­ing up over a great food and con­ver­sa­tion.

poached shrimp salad

Poached shrimp sal­ad, with Niagara nec­tarines, bibb let­tuce (for it’s ten­der tex­ture), endive, lime, and hazel­nut dress­ing. An appe­tiz­er good enough for a main.

Continue read­ing “reduc­tion”…

  1. They got evict­ed due to an unsym­pa­thet­ic land­lord, could­n’t find a suit­able place to stay, and end­ed up putting as many of their pos­ses­sions as pos­si­ble in stor­age and sell­ing the rest. Luckily, one of their friends need­ed a house-sit­ter, and it gave them enough time to find a place. [↩]

it hasn't been quite a whole year yet

I still have fond mem­o­ries of the fall. It’s when the light is at it’s most neu­tral, not warmed by the sum­mer sun or cooled by it’s reflec­tion on the snow. The time of long show­ers, kit­ties being even more affec­tion­ate, and girls always find­ing the right spot to nes­tle under your neck.

On par­tic­u­lar­ly bright, chilly days, with all the leaves a flat lemon-yel­low, I can hard­ly take it all in.

cat in sunbeam

We are on this plan­et to move our cats direct­ly in the path of a sun­beam every 15 min­utes.

The sun­beams form a celes­tial cal­en­dar across my floor, slow­ly creep­ing along as they threat­en to warp the wood in my instru­ments, remind­ing me that I haven’t spent a win­ter in this room yet. I can only hope the mem­o­ries will be bet­ter this time around.

These days, I still dream of a nylon-stringed beau­ty, with warm tones and crisp bass close to the sad­dle. I won­der what she’ll feel like under my fin­gers, mahogany or rose­wood, satin or glossy. It’s a dream that nev­er seems far away cause I know it’ll hap­pen some day, so I try to cher­ish the antic­i­pa­tion.

toy plane

I’ve been feel­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly nos­tal­gic. When the right song comes on, I’m tak­en to the time in my life when it was the only thing I played for a week straight. I used to write so much, but late­ly I hard­ly have any­thing to say it all. That’s why I’m addict­ed to the feel­ing of feel­ing, search­ing for inspi­ra­tion, using my dreams to keep me alive.

Singhouse Studios — Sparkle

Singhouse Studios is a voice and per­for­mance school for peo­ple of all ages, and one night every year the stu­dents per­form in a big show. This year, the show — titled Sparkle — was celebri­ty-themed, com­plete with a melange of hits from the last five decades, a red car­pet run­way for all the stars, and even Ottawa’s local pop heart­throb, Alex Lacasse1.

Music by Five Stripe Studios. Adrian and I worked close­ly to make sure the music had the right kind of play­ful ener­gy to focus on the school’s main demo­graph­ic.

I was asked to cre­ate a pro­mo­tion­al video for the stu­dio, so I fol­lowed the per­form­ers to tell the sto­ry of their day, from the back­stage to the main stage. I felt it was as impor­tant to see all the prepa­ra­tion as much as the per­for­mances them­selves, which is why I includ­ed footage of warm-up rou­tines, prac­tice rit­u­als, and dress rehearsals. I love to see the focus so many of the young per­form­ers have, and much of that comes out before they even step into the spot­light.

  1. Who’s been a stu­dent at the stu­dio for years now. [↩]

I'm taking back my weekends

The prob­lem with work­ing from home is that you’re nev­er real­ly off. There’s always some­thing you can be doing, so it’s hard to detach and just relax. The days of the week lose their mean­ing. I haven’t had a vaca­tion in about a year, and I’ve been at home almost that whole time. It’s left me feel­ing burned out. Lisa and I are both going through the same thing at this point in our lives, and we’re try­ing to fig­ure out how to pick our­selves up from prob­lems that seem insur­mount­able when we’re liv­ing them by our­selves.

But baby steps first, and today was back to a greasy break­fast. I watched The English Patient, cause I’ve been in the mood for epics late­ly, and I’d been deny­ing myself the plea­sure for too long. I dis­cov­ered the part I used to place my kiss­es is called the supraster­nal notch. Now I won­der if she ever sees the English Patient, whether she’ll think I just stole some idea from some movie, or whether she’ll remem­ber and gen­tly fin­ger the val­ley my lips claimed as their own.

At the end of these movies, I always feel a mix­ture of emo­tions, the same when step­ping out of the Shakespearean plays I saw in high school: deject­ed from all the tragedy, yet amazed by such pro­found per­for­mances and pro­duc­tions. It was the same after I fin­ished read­ing Doctor Zhivago. Maybe cause I iden­ti­fy with the poet-war­riors, the themes of their love, the depths of their emo­tions, and the trap­pings of their fate. No mat­ter what the emo­tion is though, it makes me sit in the dark and write about things the way I used to.

And that’s enough for now.

I'm happy to report that my blood does clot

The best time of the year to make the dri­ve to Darren’s house is in the Autumn. It’s about five hours door-to-door — bar­ring any traf­fic or con­struc­tion — so there’s a good chance I’ll catch a sun­rise or sun­set no mat­ter when I leave. It’s par­tic­u­lar­ly beau­ti­ful when the leaves are chang­ing and the colours are at their rich­est along the stretch­es of the 401.

Sometimes I’ll turn on a stand-up com­e­dy sta­tion instead of music, and it helps take my mind off the drea­ri­ness of the less scenic parts1. It’s like hav­ing anoth­er per­son to talk to, except the con­ver­sa­tion goes one way, and they tend to be fun­ny when not over­ly polit­i­cal2 or Andrew Dice Clay.

Chinese dishes

Zhaliang and clas­sic Cantonese noo­dles. #thingsIcouldeateveryday

I still think of mov­ing back to Toronto, where there’s every­thing that isn’t avail­able to me in Ottawa. But I hate all the things that come with such an unwieldy and poor­ly amal­ga­mat­ed city. At my age, I val­ue com­fort over excite­ment, and Toronto has become a city that’s bet­ter to vis­it than to stay.

After meet­ing Mike in London, I knew that’s where I was meant to live, with Bloc Party and Monty Python and The Underground and rainy weath­er and Portishead and a bil­lion accents and Only Fools and Horses and that sto­ic British men­tal­i­ty and Paris just a train ride away. But that was­n’t my fate, and the dirty streets of Toronto are the clos­est I’ll ever get to that.

Continue read­ing “I’m hap­py to report that my blood does clot”…

  1. Usually the small towns with no charm or per­son­al­i­ty. [↩]
  2. Cause I nev­er get it. [↩]