Posts in category "Daily Life"

Crier

I’ve gained a cer­tain noto­ri­ety amongst some as being a crier, but today was the first time that I actu­al­ly had a break­down. The first time there was­n’t just a sin­gle thing that brought me to tears, but sev­er­al, which, by them­selves, would have been tol­er­a­ble. And even though I’ve long known and been an advo­cate of the prac­ti­cal aspects of lachry­mol­o­gy, today was the first time that I still felt like shit when I could­n’t cry any more.

This song in my head is telling me about how the stars keep shin­ing down, the world keeps turn­ing ’round, not to let these hard­ships bring me down because times like these will come around. I believe him, because I’ve been there. I’ve been to the point where I wished my inter­est in sui­cide was just a cry for atten­tion, and I’ve been to the point where it felt like noth­ing could bring me down.

All I know right now is that I’m going to get through this week, but it’s not going to be easy.

The Silly Walker

Sometimes, if I hap­pen to be walk­ing some­where, I’ll walk next to some­one just to see how they han­dle the awk­ward­ness. I find that most peo­ple are so uncom­fort­able with it that they will actu­al­ly slow down. Sometimes I’ll also match their pace, and they end up slow­ing down so much that it becomes very obvi­ous, and I can tell that they start to won­der if I’m doing it on pur­pose.

This morn­ing, I was walk­ing next to a woman seemed so dis­tressed by it, that after a while, she feigned run­ning for a bus that she had absolute­ly no chance of catch­ing.

The Autumn Leaves

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les sou­venirs et les regrets aus­si
Mais mon amour silen­cieux et fidèle
Sourit tou­jours et remer­cie la vie

—Jacques Prévert, Les feuilles mortes

Thumbnail: Autumn leaves

The leaves shuf­fle past on the side­walk, and all I can think about is how, every sin­gle day, the weath­er can be so dif­fer­ent, so unique­ly beau­ti­ful.

An accou­trement, she calls her­self. An intel­li­gent, ener­getic, pas­sion­ate acces­so­ry, what bet­ter bijou? So I wear her on my arm, along with my ribbed sweater and depend­able jeans, while walk­ing along the streets on a com­fort­ably cool after­noon.

The autumn days are ours.

Social

Thumbnail: Empty seats at Social
Thumbnail: Social menu and card
Thumbnail: Tableware

A few years ago, while we were still liv­ing togeth­er, Pita and I passed by a restau­rant called Social that was along the mar­ket. We looked in at the ele­gant, min­i­mal atmos­phere, the nice­ly dressed peo­ple, and the intri­cate dish­es that were being served to them. Looking at the menu post­ed out­side, and not­ing the lack of dec­i­mals in the pric­ing (every­thing was in flat dol­lars), it was mutu­al­ly agreed that going there to dine with­out a rea­son to cel­e­brate was out of our bud­get. Just walk­ing inside was some­thing that we would have to earn, and we made an agree­ment. For the term, if I could man­age all As (any­thing from an A- to an A+, or a GPA of over 8.0) and if he could win his next com­pe­ti­tion (for both stan­dard and Latin ball­room danc­ing) than we would walk in one day and order any­thing we want­ed.

The term came and passed, and in the end I only man­aged a bunch of measly grades, while he got bronze at the com­pe­ti­tion. We nev­er spoke of it again.

Until this week. After trav­el­ing abroad for more than a year and work­ing in his native coun­try, Pita came back to Canada to set­tle down. He decid­ed to live the rest of his life in Montreal, but he was able to vis­it for the week­end. We agreed on lunch at Social, not need­ing any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion between each oth­er. After all, we grad­u­at­ed, found jobs, start­ed to set­tle down. We had­n’t seen each oth­er in over a year.

He had the duck, I had the lamb. Both were unbe­liev­ably suc­cu­lent, ten­der, and came with fresh sal­ads in a light dress­ing, along with super-thin fries. Even though we weren’t dressed as well as what some would call the “reg­u­lar” patrons, we were served well and with respect, some­thing can’t be said about all the restau­rants I’ve been to. To be hon­est, I’ve nev­er been giv­en a choice of water (reg­u­lar, min­er­al, soda, or sparkling, the man told us). I paid this time, and Pita agreed to treat me when I vis­it him in Montreal.

Cool Water

I tried on Cool Water by Davidoff yes­ter­day. It smelled great on the sam­ple card with its dis­tinct­ly refresh­ing scent, but had the unfor­tu­nate effect of turn­ing into an odor rem­i­nis­cent of paradichloroben­zene as I learned in chem­istry, or what is com­mon­ly referred to as “uri­nal cake”, when applied to my skin. It was an effort to not mic­turate on my wrists for the rest of the day.