Posts in category "Photos"

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 Nights that have been replaced by din­ners with nuclear fam­i­lies and one-on-ones.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.

pulling weeds and planting flowers

Few peo­ple have been able to fill the void late­ly. The ones who do sing to me the unashamed­ly erot­ic songs of John Dowland and help me test new decks.

Through it all, I’ve been try­ing to take five breaths every now and then, inhal­ing and exhal­ing a lit­tle more ful­ly than usu­al. Trying not to live like it’s a fri­day every day. Trying to fig­ure out if I should apol­o­gize for using your song to score the moments I shared with some­one else. Trying to rec­on­cile my old Taoist beliefs with my new Buddhist views. Trying to be hap­py with the per­son I am, instead of let­ting dis­con­tent dri­ve self-improve­ment.

house in the woods

 

Frigid win­ter days are teach­ing me patience and vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Some are eas­i­er than oth­ers. I’ve been work­ing with the fick­le swings instead of against them. Otherwise, it’s a con­stant strug­gle when try­ing to impose sta­t­ic order on inher­ent­ly unsta­ble process­es. The hard part is mak­ing plans when you don’t know how you’ll feel from one day to the next.

Jesse arranges

Back in the day when we were doing cov­ers of Frank Ocean songs. One of the most rec­og­niz­able things about Jesse’s room are instru­ments strewn about.

The great­est test of my progress so far will be an acoustic show Jesse asked me to play with him on Sunday. Anxiety has been get­ting the bet­ter of me late­ly, and the prospect of hav­ing only two nights of rehearsal does noth­ing to assuage this.

I’ve been keep­ing in mind that we were able to pull off a decent per­for­mance last time when I did­n’t know the show was going to hap­pen until a few hours pri­or; one of those exer­cis­es to fos­ter pos­i­tive expe­ri­ences and com­bat neg­a­tiv­i­ty bias. Fortunately, Jesse is a great front­man to be behind, cause he com­mands the atten­tion of any­one watch­ing, also tak­ing the atten­tion away from ner­vous fin­gers and live jit­ters.

cat and girl

 

The jour­ney of self-dis­cov­ery has been dif­fi­cult. When there’s a his­to­ry of trau­ma, it’s inevitable that an uncom­fort­able feel­ings get stirred up every now and then. I take care of myself by mak­ing sure I see the impor­tant peo­ple on a con­sis­tent basis and liv­ing in those moments. The lit­tle ways to heal are found in both the expe­ri­ences them­selves and the time one takes to inter­nal­ize those expe­ri­ences.

This is how I learn that self-com­pas­sion isn’t self-pity, and that most peo­ple bring less kind­ness to them­selves than to oth­ers. To get on my own side, I’ve been visu­al­iz­ing myself as a child, just as wor­thy of care as any oth­er. I would wish the best for that lit­tle per­son, and it helps me under­stand that I should wish the best for myself as well.

torpor

The hol­i­day sea­son is offi­cial­ly over when it does­n’t feel right to watch Christmas spe­cials of Only Fools and Horses. The Trotter boys are out of their ele­ment, try­ing to strike it rich in exot­ic locales, and the Peckham flat is too far away for things to feel nor­mal. Still, watch­ing them makes me miss the UK more than ever. I’ve tak­en to episodes of Sherlock to get my dose of London nights until I can find a way to make it over there again.

girl in snow

Pointer of quar­ry, tamer of cats.

Over here, it’s been a faith­ful Canadian win­ter. Bouts of var­ied snow­fall, record-break­ing lows, and a spot of freez­ing rain here and there. My gui­tar must be aching­ly dry as the mod­est humid­i­fi­er help­less­ly fails to main­tain bal­ance against the con­stant churn of the fur­nace.

I’ve been pick­ing her up again, rebuild­ing my blis­ters and re-learn­ing old songs. Sometimes I won­der how I was ever able to play cer­tain pas­sages, but know­ing I have before makes it eas­i­er the sec­ond time around. This time it feels a lit­tle dif­fer­ent though. I have a bet­ter reach and a more con­fi­dent picky, along with some new pains that have found their way into my hands.

cat in cat bed

The cold that per­me­ates the house means Dolly prefers sleep­ing in her bed over any one spot, and I can car­ry her around with me from room to room to keep me com­pa­ny. Byron is rarely far away. Even though he’s not as affec­tion­ate as Dolly, he’s still my cat in the way he comes to walk on me when I wake, and the rit­u­al play­time we have after teeth are brushed.

With the cats form­ing a lit­tle nest wher­ev­er I go, and the view of ice and snow just out­side the win­dow, I have lit­tle rea­son to leave the house nowa­days.