Posts in category "Daily Life"

Home early

After a night of camp­ing, I’m home more than a day ear­ly. The unre­lent­ing rain and insects were enough for me to won­der whether it’s worth for­go­ing the com­forts of home (and rest, and clean­li­ness) for a few new sub­jects to pho­to­graph.

I now have sev­er­al mos­qui­to bites on my body, about the size of my fist each. This is with­out any scratch­ing on my part, and they’re steadi­ly grow­ing. My skin has always react­ed bad­ly to mos­qui­to bites. I’m pret­ty sure I’d have to turn down National Geographic if they ever offered me a job as a wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

hugs

 

Jesse Dangerously — Halifax Rap Legend (Live @ Zaphod Beeblebrox)

The last stop of the 1000 Crooked Miles was right here at Zaphod’s in Ottawa. The last song of the night was Jesse’s (who was head­lin­ing) with a per­for­mance of Halifax Rap Legend, the beat tak­en from his upcom­ing album.

I know of no oth­er rap­per who can use the expres­sion “rest­ing on your lau­rels” in their rhymes. I sus­pect this is why MC Chris once named him as the only rap­per he liked.

hugs

Hugs after the show.

I didn't come here for the tea

I came here to get out of the house. Room, actu­al­ly. I haven’t had a face-to-face con­ver­sa­tion with any­one in three days.

I kept going through my phone book. No one. Not a sin­gle per­son I want to talk to. No one with whom to be myself com­plete­ly, with whom to spend in com­pa­ny with­out con­ver­sa­tion. Hank told me a morn­ing of awk­ward­ness is far bet­ter than a night of lone­li­ness, but I beg to dif­fer. The morn­ings always seem to last much longer.

At the same time, this is when I want to dis­tract myself the most, and being with oth­er peo­ple is the most effec­tive way. I’m too busy being focused on spend­ing time with some­one else that I can for­get about myself.

In the car it’s all Kid Cudi, and even though I’ve always told myself I would­n’t dri­ve when I’m like this, I’d always want­ed to hear this album when I’m in this kind of mood. I was nev­er one to resist a night in cool sum­mer air, cruis­ing under the city lights to old haunts.

Waiting for my order affords me the oppor­tu­ni­ty to sur­rep­ti­tious­ly observe peo­ple and try to fig­ure out their roles each clique as they inter­act. Even though I’m alone, it’s com­fort enough to be among strangers.

life being what it is

Darren came up from Toronto for a vis­it over the long week­end.

These ses­sions always ful­fill my quo­ta of rela­tion­ship talk. When one admits to not want­i­ng to be in a rela­tion­ship, this is fol­lowed nat­u­ral­ly by the ques­tion, “Would you go for it if you found the per­fect one right now?” from the oth­er. Then in return, “If she came back to you and said she want­ed to try again, but you only had a 50–50 per­cent chance of suc­cess, would you go for it?”

In our lit­tle duet, our philo­soph­i­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion, love is always a theme. No one else chal­lenges our psy­ches in this regard.

Trivial Pursuit night

 

Continue read­ing “life being what it is”…

Audra's 34th

For Audra’s birth­day we head­ed to the Savana Cafe, with some choco­late ice cream cake at the William’s res­i­dence after leav­ing the very rude ser­vice we were giv­en.

I also got to meet Jesse’s dad, Jim. He reminds me very much of his son in terms of their intel­lect and inter­ests, and I found it quite nov­el to talk to an old­er ver­sion of Jesse with a soft voice and grey facial hair.

Dinner table

Across the table is Jesse, Caitlyn, Ariel, Ira, and Jairus. Jesse’s dad to my right.

Continue read­ing “Audra’s 34th”…