Posts in category "Daily Life"

Catan Catan Strip-Catan

We’ve start­ed mak­ing wagers in our mul­ti­play­er Magic games, small baubles or oth­er peo­ple’s prop­er­ty or an half-hour of labour1 to add anoth­er dimen­sion to the game­play. For a par­tic­u­lar three-way match, I anted my atten­dance at Catan Catan Strip-Catan cause I could­n’t make up my mind on going. Another busy week meant I was tired of being social — with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of being naked in such a sit­u­a­tion, no less — but it still sound­ed like a night that should­n’t be passed up.

Settlers of Strip Catan

Socks are usu­al­ly the first to go, but the pair counts as one point. And Brandon isn’t play­ing, he’s just half-naked for rea­sons.

Tiana and Shawn teamed up on me, since they want­ed me to go more than they want­ed to win what I had offered. However, they’ve also been mak­ing me feel com­fort­able with myself late­ly (the cud­dles always help), so I was okay with being tack­le-out at some point dur­ing the par­ty. I end­ed up win­ning all my Catan match­es any­way, and nev­er need­ed to take off more than an accou­trement.

  1. Great when you need the dish­es done after a par­ty, but I’m more like­ly to take a mas­sage. [↩]

moulting

Holy shit how did this song find me in the mid­dle of blan­ket­ing white snow­fall, instead of sum­mer? I’ll take it either way1. I’ve need­ed a new addic­tion after too many maudlin jazz albums, too often fuelled by hard-liv­ing and a woman. This means I’m ready for a taste of warm weath­er. I miss the wind through my clothes and the smell of girls’ skin when it’s been touched by sweat and sun­light.

cat close-up

Guizmo.

I’m in the process of sim­pli­fy­ing, which has meant fig­ur­ing out my pri­or­i­ties, and tru­ly let­ting go of the things I don’t need, whether it’s a bad habit or rela­tion­ship or thought. Maybe this is why I haven’t been feel­ing my age; it feels like I’m con­stant­ly start­ing over in var­i­ous parts of my life.

This has­n’t made writ­ing any eas­i­er. I’m always wait­ing for a feel­ing to last, but it tends to pass before I have a chance to get it down on paper. Maybe the insta­bil­i­ty is what I should be writ­ing about. Not about who I am, but how much things are chang­ing.

Audra recent­ly wrote about how frus­trat­ing it is when she can’t get into a state of per­ma­nence. She said it par­tic­u­lar­ly well here: “I know it is not real­is­tic for all progress to be lin­ear, or for things to be able to become con­stant once they become good. But I sure do day­dream about it.” It makes me feel so val­i­dat­ed when some­one is able to put into words the things I’ve been going through with­out hav­ing talked about it with them.

Chinese dinner

My dad asks if I want to get a pic­ture before we start, Lisa says he must know me very well.

In between: Chris final­ly kiss­es Angie. It’s a good­night kiss while her creepy col­league is asleep in the same room, yet some­how man­ages to be the sweet­est first-kiss ever. I start to grow my hair out and wear it down, out of bore­dom. People say it fits me. Byron brings me his toys so I’ll toss them again, and I begin to won­der who’s train­ing who. Lisa meets my dad. We final­ly watch True Romance and Gary Oldman becomes my new favourite actor. I rack up over 150 hours played in Awesomenauts this year, and I’ve made online friends (it’s weird). Assad los­es anoth­er gen­er­al to the rebels, there’s still no end in sight after three years of fight­ing, and oth­er­wise I remain bliss­ful­ly igno­rant to the world.

  1. Also comes in a high­ly enter­tain­ing music video ver­sion. [↩]

in the arms of men

My wit and my elo­quence are not at their best at this par­tic­u­lar moment, which is why I have no quick riposte to your rib­bing. All my humour is dry and self-dep­re­cat­ing any­way. It’s mak­ing me won­der if you think I can’t take an Asian joke or two. The truth is, I don’t know how to make fun of any­one but myself.

Too bad you’ve got piss tests com­ing up. We’ve got this bal­cony, the right occa­sion, and I don’t drink any­more. Doesn’t mean I can’t lis­ten to your war sto­ries, or dan­gle in the air when you give out bear hugs. Perhaps I’d be less awk­ward when it comes to such bond­ing if I was in high-school JV foot­ball. Seth made the team one year, and scored a touch­down for guys like us.

downtown Ottawa

I remem­ber you. Iain and I went to buy a $5 hit off your bong 10 years ago, back when we cut our teeth on prairie fires and five-cent wings and I’ll-nev­er-do-that-again. You were danc­ing to jazz by your­self in a beat­er and per­pet­u­al Kangol when we walked in, but you wore no shame on your face. The world is small when our lives are not.

Last time I saw Iain was at the house­warm­ing, but I still think of him every time I use those crys­tal glass­es he gave me that day. He would have want­ed them filled with some­thing tight-bod­ied and twelve-years old. Nowadays all I can take is a lit­tle Bailey’s on my Mayan choco­late Häagen-Dazs. Luckily they’re also per­fect for ice cream.

bachelor

I’ve long missed these nights. Breathing fresh air when step­ping out of a stuffy bar. That sud­den calm when com­ing out of the din. Big groups with the chance to change con­ver­sa­tions. Nights that have been replaced by din­ners with nuclear fam­i­lies and one-on-ones. Oddly enough, the only thing in com­mon are sto­ries of how one’s son is learn­ing to play with his dick. The world would have me believe that a man isn’t made by the drinks he orders but by the atten­tion he gives his kids.

If only I did­n’t have to go so soon. I’ve nev­er been to the peel­ers in Ottawa, and I can only imag­ine where my bills will end up.

stepping into groundlessness

I can tell I’ve had enough of win­ter when I start to enjoy the days above 0 more than the ones below. Those are the days when the air is clear with­out being frigid, and you’re only cold when sun isn’t on your skin. I know I’ll be okay when such her­alds of warm weath­er appear. Spring is com­ing just in time this year.

Constant plans and new projects are mak­ing the weeks pass as quick­ly as ever, only now I mark the time by my days with Lisa. We’ve set aside every oth­er Thursday for each oth­er, and it’s the only com­mit­ment I have in my life now, some­thing I haven’t had the plea­sure of shar­ing with some­one in a while.

chicken hearts

Step one in mak­ing cat food: get over the fact that the souls of a mil­lion chick­ens will even­tu­al­ly haunt you at night for grind­ing up their hearts.

She recent­ly start­ed help­ing me make my own cat food, which involves her schlep­ping a meat grinder, vit­a­min sup­ple­ments, and giant tub1 to my place every time, but she loves tak­ing care of my cats as much as I do. We can both agree it’s well worth the effort when see­ing how much they appre­ci­ate fresh meat and how healthy it makes them.

The rest of our time is spent with Miley Highrus and Zelda Hitzgerald, shar­ing the things we’ve grown to love by our­selves as much as the things we’ve yet to expe­ri­ence togeth­er, watch­ing Skins and learn­ing that I like Chris cause Chris likes Angie and I real­ly like Angie. Some weeks, this is the only time we have off from the rest of our respec­tive lives, and the things we can share only in per­son make it all the more spe­cial.

Return to Ravnica draft

Slinging card­board.

I can’t help but ques­tion what I know about love and hap­pi­ness and truth and the world and myself. I’ve been try­ing to let go of the things I under­stand and the way I feel, giv­ing myself time to let every­thing set­tle, but embrac­ing the ground­less­ness has­n’t been easy. It often leaves me feel­ing very much out of my ele­ment no mat­ter what I’m doing, and long­ing for some sem­blance of sta­bil­i­ty. The most I can do is keep in mind that there’s no pres­sure to be a cer­tain way, and that answers will come in their own time.

  1. I don’t have a sin­gle con­tain­er in the house that’s large enough to mix the rough­ly 10kg of chick­en parts required for a two-month batch. [↩]

feels like falling

Before play­ing at Slaysh we decid­ed to call our­selves The Jeff Band, fea­tur­ing Jesse as front­man and Father as Dad. Our half-hour set con­sist­ed of five songs, Jesse charm­ing the audi­ence with his ban­ter (as always), and not a sin­gle unre­cov­er­able mis­take made.

When there’s only one take, it’s easy for me to get caught up in focus­ing too intent­ly and los­ing my place. That’s why no mat­ter how much I prac­tice, I’m always ner­vous about play­ing solos and car­ry­ing vamps. Nevertheless, it’s good to know I’m still capa­ble of such feel­ings, and that in some ways, we’re for­ev­er chil­dren.

Howard the Fox Project

Howard the Fox Project on her Godin 5th Avenue, an arch­top with curves in all the right places.

Slowing down has­n’t been easy. Being effi­cient is an old habit of mine. Only now do I under­stand how much pass­es by when you’re con­stant­ly going at full pace. I’ve been savour­ing every expe­ri­ence, hold­ing each one in my aware­ness and let­ting it be as intense as pos­si­ble.

If only it did­n’t feel like I’m falling every step of the way, con­stant­ly expect­ing to land on sol­id ground. I’ve nev­er been so unsure of every­thing. The book says it’s nat­ur­al to expe­ri­ence some unnerv­ing ground­less­ness when the foun­da­tion of old beliefs falls away, but know­ing this is all part of the process does­n’t make it any eas­i­er. I nev­er would have expect­ed to be going through so much upheaval at this point in my life.

French toast loaf

French toast loaf is the most inge­nius thing since syrup.

Good com­pa­ny has been help­ing me ride out the storm. People have been nur­tur­ing my sense of secure attach­ment by say­ing the things I need to hear, help­ing me get shit done, and tak­ing the ini­tia­tive to make plans. If only it did­n’t leave me feel­ing even more over­stim­u­lat­ed and dis­tract­ed at a time when I’m con­stant­ly try­ing to remain focused and present.