Posts in category "Photos"

booster draft

Today, I got to intro­duce some very good friends to each oth­er. Everyone got along famous­ly, although it could­n’t have gone any oth­er way with these guys.

It was the first boost­er draft for three of us. I was mas­sa­cred in every game, and did­n’t have any less fun los­ing to such great sports.

Magic: The Gathering booster draft

Two Innistrad and two Dark Ascension. Oh what glit­ter­ing gold­en sym­bols lie beneath these wrap­pers.

Unfortunately, noth­ing inter­est­ed me when we were pick­ing out rares1, so I got noth­ing for the deck I’m cur­rent­ly build­ing, and no direc­tion for a sec­ond deck. But as Aaron said, even if you lose, it’s cheap­er than a night of pok­er. Sometimes you lose it on the riv­er, some­times you draw 13 con­sec­u­tive lands, and some­times you OH GOD WHY ARE MY CREATURES DEAD ARGHGHHGHGH LETS PLAY AGAIN.

  1. And there was­n’t a sin­gle green rare — exact­ly what I was look­ing for — out of 17 rares. I have no idea what the chances are on that, but I know they’re not big. [↩]

The Little Man Must Go On

Live accord­ing to the sea­sons
In the town where I was born
Things have got­ta have a rea­son
The sun don’t come before the dawn

(Thanks again, Antje.)

How did I lose anoth­er week? Another week of that snow smell and gui­tar lessons and Nordique red­heads I nev­er asked out again. Lost to the trap­pings of life. So much has hap­pened, and yet noth­ing has changed, though things will be dif­fer­ent soon enough. And while I wish I could say that I had more to say about it all, I don’t.

teas in spoons
tea-table
tea served

Over some ancient moon­light white tea, Heather G asked how my belief in Taoism was going. It made me real­ize I had­n’t thought about it in a while, which is exact­ly the point. I’ve been try­ing not to try to act, and just been act­ing. Doing my best not to over-think things. Taking it one call, one con­ver­sa­tion, one day, one week at a time.

don't let the past remind us of what we are not now

It’s been anoth­er crazy week. Between the appoint­ments and the hang­outs, I haven’t had a night to myself.

One thing I wish I had more time to appre­ci­ate is the weath­er. The most recent bliz­zard draped the city in snow wet and heavy, and all I want to do now is go out and shoot with a nice piece of glass that goes wider than f/2.8. I keep promis­ing myself I’ll do it next snow­fall, but life always seems to get in the way.

baby playing peekaboo

The over­stim­u­la­tion has left me with my guard down, and I’m stuck in my mem­o­ries again. Left remem­ber­ing old con­ver­sa­tions, nights lost to the sens­es, and my regret at not men­tion­ing how much I liked those nails done up in white and nude.

It’s not my fault. Honest. I get pulled into it in the most inno­cent ways. That song will come over the tin­ny speak­ers in the pro­duce depart­ment when I’m pick­ing out toma­toes. Or I’ll be on the 12 home, going through ran­dom songs in my col­lec­tion to try out my new mon­i­tors, when I catch some­one shar­ing what I always saved for us.

I’m start­ing to under­stand how help­less I am to change the past, but at the very least, I can change myself. And that’s often good enough nowa­days.

moments between cities

The dri­ve home is always eas­i­er. Not because I’m leav­ing, but because it’s when I can catch my breath after some relent­less debauch­ery I excuse as being for a spe­cial occa­sion.

I’m at an age where my body will feel this over the next two days, spent recov­er­ing phys­i­cal­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. Luckily, exhaus­tion numbs the sens­es, and makes the time pass quick­er on those long stretch­es where dis­tance is mea­sured in hours.

driving at night sepia

Cousins, British humour, heart­break, shots, glut­tony, rum­ble strips, but nev­er enough time.

The 401 is the kind of high­way that Springsteen used to write about on his heart­land folk albums, the only ones I ever liked. The songs were nev­er about a road itself, but about all the lust and hate and change that hap­pened between two peo­ple when they trav­elled along that road.

In the same way, dri­ving the 401 has always been when I have a chance to find myself. It often leaves me feel­ing like a dif­fer­ent per­son when I get to where I’m going.

wrapped in chords

Context. It’s 19°C in the house. I keep an elec­tric heat­ing pad under my hood­ie, the gui­tar is slung around my body, and my head­phones are con­nect­ed to the com­put­er. I’m wrapped in chords, with a win­ter scene per­pet­u­al­ly out­side my win­dow.

I know this won’t last for­ev­er, so I’m indulging in these lit­tle rit­u­als. Trying to enjoy all the lit­tle things I start­ed tak­ing for grant­ed, like car rides at night when the roads are clear and the car is warm. I’ve lost myself in the shuf­fle. I know I need to recen­tre myself, but I’m wait­ing for things to set­tle down first.

There’s so much I don’t say to my friends. Not because I don’t trust them, but because my news nev­er feels impor­tant enough to bring up. It’s stuff they stopped talk­ing about years ago, cause they’ve moved on from this part of their lives. Well I’m still here, hop­ing every­thing’s going to work out in the end.

Magic: The Gathering prize

Martial Coup: Put X 1/1 white Soldier crea­ture tokens onto the bat­tle­field. If X is 5 or more, destroy all oth­er crea­tures, and win a box, a boost­er, a pack of nice lands.

I real­ized that I don’t spend that much time with my core group any­more, but I do hang out with a revolv­ing group of friends. It seems like there’s always anoth­er per­son to catch up with, anoth­er meal to share, anoth­er night of gam­ing with the guys. It’s keep­ing me occu­pied, for which I’m thank­ful late­ly.

Otherwise, I’ve been think­ing a lit­tle bit about the past and a lot about the future. Trying to pic­ture where I’m going to end up, but it’s nev­er some­thing I can fig­ure out.