Posts in category "Daily Life"

Good Times For A Change

Before you start read­ing, play this song. It’s a Deftones cov­er of The Smiths’ song Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want. There have been a few oth­er artists who have done cov­ers too, includ­ing Muse, but only Chino has the kind of raw emo­tion in his voice that match­es Morrisey.

This song was writ­ten for right now.

Orchid bouquet

I’ve moved main­ly to video. Getting a lit­tle tired of the still pho­to­graph medi­um. I had my first com­mis­sion this week­end at the NAC, record­ing a jazz trio con­cert in exchange for a few tick­ets for my friends.

If you could­n’t tell, I’ve been obsessed with colour tones and vignetting late­ly. Making my pho­tos look like old mem­o­ries. Maybe this is a way for me to go back; revert­ing to past expe­ri­ences, draw­ing inward as an intro­vert, regress­ing to a dif­fer­ent time, when all I had was inno­cence but that was enough.

Me in a tie

I’ve been strange­ly serene. Sleeping well. When things get com­pli­cat­ed I’ve been less sto­ic, and more light-heart­ed.

Dolly eating chicken

Maybe it’s the house being clean. Maybe I’m sat­is­fied with the the new dec­o­ra­tions. Maybe it was the last week­end, get­ting caught up on errands and tasks, final­ly feel­ing like my head is above water.

Maybe it’s the weath­er. The rain. The wind. The warmth of the sun. The tem­per­a­ture drop. The way I can leave my win­dow open at night.

Civic logo in rain

Maybe it’s feel­ing social­ly ful­filled. Seeing friends, laugh­ing hard, trips out of town, trips on my own.

Star fingers

Maybe it’s the nights spent hold­ing her, caress­ing every inch of her skin. Maybe it’s the way she held me too.

Chopped vegetables

Maybe it’s the accep­tance. A way I’ve let go where I’ve found myself final­ly free, and liv­ing. Something I always think I’ve been able to do, only to real­ize a day lat­er that I did­n’t before, but I have now, hon­est­ly.

School bus

Maybe it’s all the movies I’ve been watch­ing in the time between, see­ing myself in every char­ac­ter, every sit­u­a­tion. Going back to high school, being back at uni­ver­si­ty.

Potting plant

I’m not sure what it is, but I know this feel­ing won’t last for­ev­er. It nev­er has. It’s the flux between storm and seren­i­ty that moves me.

Been writ­ing this entry over the last week.

In a cou­ple days, this blog turns six.

Maybe I just had a few good weeks.

Long Weekend

It’s almost two in the morn­ing. Yet again, I should be sleep­ing, but I’m writ­ing now, not because the inspi­ra­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly strik­ing, but because I don’t know when I’ll have a chance to write again. So now I’m enjoy­ing my new scent­ed can­dles and the way the apple cin­na­mon aro­ma mix­es with the night air com­ing through my back door.

I need­ed this long week­end.

Julie and I just got back from Pat and Jen’s one-year anniver­sary par­ty, in which I was final­ly able to give them the anniver­sary gift I’d been sav­ing since the wed­ding: a col­lec­tion of video mes­sages left by guests dur­ing the recep­tion (record­ed on the lap­top I’m using to type this right now, no less).

I also got a chance to try their new Wii Fit, learned how to play Bohnanza (a bean trad­ing game), and pigged out on gigan­tic ham­burg­ers and German pota­to sal­ad.

Been try­ing to fin­ish my projects and tie up loose ends.

Been try­ing to match sched­ules with peo­ple: next week­end is din­ner with Misun and Frédéric and their two boys (which we’ve been try­ing to coor­di­nate for more than a month now), the week­end after is ____’s vis­it, and the one after that is din­ner, movie, and Cranium with Dan and his fam­i­ly.

Been buy­ing light fix­tures and shelves and can­dles, indulging my obses­sion with frost­ed glass, and mak­ing minor house upgrades.

Been spend­ing more than I should.

Been in love with her more than I can help.

The week­ends are all I have left. After work­ing 8+ hours dur­ing the week, I don’t feel like doing any­thing but veg­ging out when I get home. So now it’s already Sunday — or Monday morn­ing, I should say — and I feel like I’ve accom­plished noth­ing so far. Not that it’s a bad thing, since I’ve been able to enjoy myself instead of feel­ing guilty that I’m not get­ting enough done. I tell myself that I’ll be pro­duc­tive when I wake up, but who knows.

Sometimes, long week­ends are for catch­ing up on doing noth­ing. And man, am I behind in that.

Trolley and Steph's Wedding

Changing groomsmen

Not only the day that Trolley got hitched, but a chance to see Adam and Tomasini and Eric and Nick and Alison; the peo­ple I only get to hang out with when camp­ing or par­ty­ing at the farm. I missed Adam and his ever ebul­lient atti­tude most of all, some­thing that nev­er fails to buoy the spir­its. Even though we did­n’t get a chance to talk much through all the prepa­ra­tion, it was enough to hear his voice and laugh­ter.

Handshake

Thumbnail: Wedding handshake
Thumbnail: Wedding handshake
Thumbnail: Taking cell phone photos
Thumbnail: Walking to the aisle
Thumbnail: Just married
 

It was back to Stanley’s Maple Farm1 for the out­door wed­ding. The rain con­tin­ued up to half an hour before the cer­e­mo­ny then stopped com­plete­ly, as if god him­self had a hand in ordain­ment.

You just need to look at the smile on Trolley’s face to under­stand how hap­py he is.

The recep­tion was open bar, with prime rib and a dessert buf­fet at the end. I had been wait­ing over a year to have the prime rib din­ner, as I was going through an undi­ag­nosed case of IBS at Aaron’s wed­ding and was left eat­ing bread. Even Pat, my gour­mand friend, said that it was cooked to per­fec­tion, and found out that the venue has a deal with the farm up the road to get the best cuts of meat.

We sur­prised the new­ly wed­ded cou­ple with the shoe game, where they answer a series of ques­tions with­out know­ing how the oth­er one will answer. They sur­prised us with how many they answered in sync. A good sign for the new­ly wed.

Thumbnail: Wedding guestbook
Thumbnail: Center piece
Thumbnail: Photographer sticks his tongue out
Thumbnail: Aaron drinks
Thumbnail: Wedding favour
 

Nick humourous­ly not­ed that there weren’t many sin­gle girls around, but being able to hang out with Aaron in the MC booth made me feel much less awk­ward and aban­doned than the last wed­ding I went to.

At one point, Trolley came up to me and asked me _____ __ _________ ____ _____. It was his wed­ding, but he was con­cerned about me. I could­n’t believe it even entered his mind with every­thing going on around him, and it was cer­tain­ly the part I’ll remem­ber most about that night.

  1. The same place Aaron got mar­ried. [↩]

A Cold And Grey Summer Day

My room is a mess, a side-effect of my busy sched­ule. I should be clean­ing. Hell, I should be sleep­ing, but I’d rather write instead, see­ing as how I haven’t had a chance in four days. It would appear as if I’m going through some sort of expres­sion with­draw­al.

Vincent Gallo prac­ti­cal­ly wrote this entry for me.

I had When by Vincent Gallo play­ing here.

(If you’re going to lis­ten to this song, turn the lights down, or at least close your eyes. Remove your­self of any ambi­ent noise. Breathe slow­ly for 30 sec­onds before play­ing it. This song deserves it. You deserve it.)

Even though it went up to 28°C today, the morn­ing start­ed cold and calm. There was so much mois­ture in the air that one could taste the grey.

It made me strange­ly sto­ic when I left the house. Something about the whether that remind­ed me of how com­fort­ing it can be to feel sad. It’s as if the earth had decid­ed to com­pli­ment my mood with cloud cov­er. I can’t even explain the cause of my sad­ness, and can only guess that real­iza­tion and accep­tance are set­ting in. The only sav­ing grace is that I feel con­fi­dent enough to pick myself up and move on. Not that I want to do it alone right now. Wish I had the option.

As the day dragged on, things start­ed to wear me down. Exhaustion dried my eyes. I kept try­ing to pick myself up, kept try­ing to hide my sigh­ing sad­ness from those around me, to no avail.

Wish I had a smile in my wardrobe for days like this.