Posts in category "Random"

Liliana, or Lili, as she's known

When Byron crossed the rain­bow bridge, we knew the fastest way to fill the holes in our hearts was to adopt a new kit­ten, anoth­er crea­ture into which we could pour our love. It was­n’t long before we start­ed apply­ing to res­cues, but with the pan­dem­ic in full swing, peo­ple had been snatch­ing up all the pets from both shel­ters and breed­ers alike. Heather even­tu­al­ly found a res­cue orga­ni­za­tion in Smith’s Falls with a goofy look­ing cat avail­able for adop­tion, so we made an appoint­ment to meet him as soon as pos­si­ble.

Unfortunately, he remained a per­pet­u­al loaf in a dark cor­ner dur­ing all the hours we stayed. Without being able to inter­act and phys­i­cal­ly check his con­di­tion, we decid­ed not to take the chance. A few oth­er kit­tens were also wan­der­ing around this mod­est coun­try house-cum-cat-gym, includ­ing one with dilute cal­i­co colours that remind­ed me so much of Dolly. She rolled onto one side to present her bel­ly as soon as I start­ed pet­ting her, and I knew she was the one right then.

Lili at the shelter

The day we met her, with­out any idea of what to call her. She was­n’t list­ed on the shel­ter’s web­site because she was­n’t yet old enough for the surg­eries required for adop­tion.

Lilana Vess from Magic: The Gathering

And her name­sake, Countess Liliana Vess. Even though she’s a mas­ter necro­mancer and heal­er, her use of mana strict­ly remains in the black domain, which seemed quite fit­ting for Lili’s mys­te­ri­ous nature.

The inspi­ra­tion I get for pet names usu­al­ly comes from cre­ative influ­ences or per­son­al heroes, but this time we went with a char­ac­ter from the Magic: The Gathering uni­verse. It’s a hob­by Heather and I have shared for so long (and into which we’ve poured an embar­rass­ing amount of mon­ey) that it felt appro­pri­ate to have a name relat­ed to some­thing we both enjoyed. And since we tend to think of our cats as roy­al­ty in some way — espe­cial­ly since they treat us like fur­ni­ture — it also made sense to name her after a per­son of nobil­i­ty.

There’s no way any­one could mis­take her for Dolly though. She’s the small­est cat I’ve ever owned, like­ly because she’s not moti­vat­ed by food in any way. With Dolly and Byron, it would be a con­stant bat­tle to keep them off the coun­ters1. Cooking any kind of meat would have them beg­ging at my feet, scream­ing to get my atten­tion. Dolly would even knock uten­sils out of my hand if I was­n’t pay­ing atten­tion. She’d eat flies, spi­ders, bee­tles, while Byron would some­how con­sume foam balls, rub­ber bands, objects that were both inan­i­mate and ined­i­ble. Lily, on the oth­er hand, is only inter­est­ed in her reg­u­lar meals and the occa­sion­al dry treat. Not bacon, sushi, but­ter, or any oth­er form of kit­ty kryp­tonite.

Lili on my lap

Our after-din­ner rit­u­al (the start of which is sig­nalled by the sound of dish­es being put away), when she climbs on me for some ear rubs or time with the de-shed­ding brush. She prefers it when I stiff­en an arm to make a guardrail for her lap-bed; oth­er­wise, she’ll keep walk­ing loops and refuse to get set­tled.

I like to think that the warm purring against my bel­ly aids in diges­tion, so it works out for us both.

Her per­son­al­i­ty could­n’t be more dif­fer­ent either, as she’s quite aloof and inde­pen­dent com­pared to how clingy Dolly was. Her favourite place to sleep has always been under the bed, so we usu­al­ly don’t see her for most of the day. She’s so shy that she’ll hide there the entire time guests are over, which is why Heather and I are the only ones who tru­ly know her and how affec­tion­ate she can be…when she’s in the mood. And unlike all my oth­er cats, who are accus­tomed to being picked up and cra­dled like a baby sev­er­al times a day, the only way she accepts being held is if I’m sit­ting with my knees up, with her lying back against my thighs so she can get both her chest and bel­ly rubbed.

When she wants atten­tion, she’ll walk into the room and demand it from me with pierc­ing meows, or flop onto her side with an exag­ger­at­ed stretch (what I call “giv­ing me a sweet roll”). It’s a rit­u­al she’ll repeat a few times, with a huff thrown in every now and then to let me know her dis­plea­sure, if I’m not giv­ing the atten­tion fast enough.

It comes as no sur­prise that she gets along with Percy, since he has a habit of groom­ing every­one — regard­less of size or species — as if they’re a lit­tle sib­ling. Still, a dom­i­nant streak will run through him every now and then, usu­al­ly man­i­fest­ing as an attempt to clamp onto her scruff and mount­ing her like he’s in heat. We don’t mind his attempts to chase her since he’s get­ting rather tub­by, while we sus­pect she’ll always remain the size of a kit­ten.

Admittedly, I’m still get­ting used to her reclu­sive­ness, espe­cial­ly com­pared to my pre­vi­ous cats, who all spent the major­i­ty of their time in my pres­ence. I always appre­ci­ate hav­ing a feline with­in arms-length so I can touch them when­ev­er I need a quick hit of dopamine, which means mak­ing sure there are always com­fort­able nests for them near­by. With Lili though, she’s always the one to ini­ti­ate, and inter­ac­tions are decid­ed­ly on her terms. As soon as she’s had enough of me, she’ll quick­ly leave and dis­ap­pear until she’s crav­ing atten­tion again. Combined with my aban­don­ment issues, it means I nev­er have the heart to get up or move once she’s decid­ed to sleep on me. Fortunately, Heather does­n’t mind being the bad guy, and will pick her up so I can remain the favourite par­ent.

  1. Leonard died too young before I could tell what kind of per­son­al­i­ty he had, while Percy is some­what in between. [↩]

the last blogger

I only knew Dooce through her infamy as the first per­son to suf­fer real-life con­se­quences for things she wrote online. It’s hard for me to be inter­est­ed in the life of any­one I don’t know per­son­al­ly (excep­tions made for peo­ple I feel inspired by or am crush­ing on), and the hand­ful of times in twen­ty years that I was curi­ous enough to vis­it her web­site, I was met with some enter­tain­ing writ­ing about mar­riage and moth­er­hood that I could­n’t give a fuck about.

The last time would have been a few years ago; I tend to check up on a few blog­gers every so often when I’m won­der­ing how the land­scape has evolved1. As one of the few who were pop­u­lar enough to make a liv­ing off the wit­ty rev­e­la­tions of per­son­al details, she eas­i­ly made the list. That’s why it was so dis­con­cert­ing to find that some months there was a sin­gle post, and the post was a list of spon­sored links to things peo­ple could buy. It was espe­cial­ly strange to find her dis­cussing diges­tive issues while a giant ban­ner would fight for my atten­tion under­neath: “And for any­one who may be expe­ri­enc­ing what I am, ButcherBox is run­ning a spe­cial pro­mo­tion through the end of the month where new mem­bers receive ground beef in every box for the life­time of their sub­scrip­tion.”

How much of her writ­ing was gen­uine? How do I trust the words of a per­son who seems to be cap­i­tal­iz­ing on her mis­for­tune?

Perhaps that’s why I was­n’t par­tic­u­lar­ly moved when I found out she com­mit­ted sui­cide two months ago. It felt like I nev­er knew who she tru­ly was beneath the curse words and prod­ucts being hawked. I also have a hard time empathiz­ing with any­one who would describe preg­nan­cy as an “end­less trove of con­tent”. For me, that kind of mind­set reeked too much of melo­dra­ma, which I find dis­taste­ful enough to avoid in real life.

It glads my heart when I stum­ble across anoth­er online diary nowa­days. A gen­uine one, of course, not updates from a com­pa­ny or a cook­ing blog that’s stuffed with pho­tos to pad the time some­one stays on the page before the recipe is found. No one enter­tains the same audi­ence as they used to, and I much pre­fer that to the kind of inter­ac­tive “con­fes­sion­al” Dooce had, or the social media influ­encers of today.

I’m remind­ed of how for­tu­nate I am to still have this lit­tle cor­ner of the web to express myself, a place where I’m not behold­en to any read­ers for a source of income. So often I find myself too bro­ken to get out of bed, too strung out to pur­sue my projects, too busy to find 15 min­utes to work on a lick. And dur­ing the stretch­es of time when I’m recov­er­ing and there’s noth­ing note­wor­thy to talk about, I’m relieved I don’t have to man­u­fac­ture expe­ri­ences to keep any­one’s atten­tion. I still get mail ask­ing if there are any spots for adver­tis­ing or avail­abil­i­ty for spon­sored posts, and they all get prompt­ly get filed away in the trash.

  1. Also a good way for me to keep abreast on the lat­est web tech­nolo­gies. [↩]

the moon represents my heart

My aunts and uncles are well aware of the con­flict I have with my par­ents. They’ve since become a sur­ro­gate fam­i­ly; the ones I call on Mother’s and Father’s Day, the peo­ple I vis­it when I go to Toronto.

With every cheque they send, my thank yous feel less and less mean­ing­ful. It’s dif­fi­cult to show how much I appre­ci­ate their love and accep­tance and sup­port when they’re well off and tend to have every­thing they could ever want or need.

One of them men­tioned Teresa Teng as a favourite singer dur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion last year, and I real­ized a cov­er of one of her songs would be a befit­ting ges­ture. The arts were tight­ly con­trolled by the Chinese gov­ern­ment for 30 years and any song heard on the radio was either patri­ot­ic or polit­i­cal, until The Moon Represents My Heart was released in the late 1970s. It marked an impor­tant cul­tur­al shift when emo­tions were con­sid­ered puerile or bour­geois, and became a favourite among many gen­er­a­tions.

This song in par­tic­u­lar is well-known by peo­ple from all three China’s (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan), as Teresa Teng’s pop­u­lar­i­ty extend­ed beyond both bor­ders and dialects. She became a com­fort­ing famil­iar­i­ty when I was grow­ing up, as I would catch her voice float­ing in the back­ground no mat­ter where I went or who I vis­it­ed.

Continue read­ing “the moon rep­re­sents my heart”…

hello? is this thing on?

The world still turns, even when it’s in lock­down, and there’s been much to say.

If only writ­ing came as eas­i­ly as it used to. The bulk of my entries have been a com­pul­sion, a way to sort out thoughts and feel­ings when I had no one to talk to.

Then I start­ed dat­ing Heather — my first time cohab­i­tat­ing with a roman­tic part­ner — and sud­den­ly had an out­let that was both acces­si­ble and val­i­dat­ing1. It became eas­i­er to turn to her than find the words for a screen that nev­er spoke back.

My time in ther­a­py has also giv­en me bet­ter emo­tion­al mod­er­a­tion; a skill to deal with the dis­tress that comes from depres­sion and trau­ma. Instead of spi­ral­ing into pan­ic or rage, I’ve learned to embrace dif­fi­cult feel­ings and let them pass through me. Scary thoughts and painful mem­o­ries don’t con­trol me the way they used to. A healthy trade for the loss of inspi­ra­tion.

In that sense, I hold an evolv­ing style and sub­ject mat­ter to be pos­i­tive devel­op­ments. After all, I began this blog almost 20 years ago. If I was fill­ing the space with the same things as I was back then it would be an embar­rass­ing sign I had­n’t grown at all. I imag­ine I’ll always have more things to say as long as I con­tin­ue learn­ing, even if the impe­tus is lack­ing.

It makes me won­der why oth­ers stopped blog­ging (or why they start­ed in the first place). Checking my RSS feed is still a habit, but nowa­days I’m left invari­ably dis­ap­point­ed and feel­ing more dis­con­nect­ed than ever. Social media has become too shal­low for my tastes. Medium too imper­son­al. YouTube too obnox­ious and osten­ta­tious and increas­ing­ly com­mer­cial, with Twitch being even worse on all those counts.

And yet there’s relief to be found in the fact that no one knows I’m writ­ing any­more2. This space is no longer sacred when I feel oblig­ed to or inhib­it­ed by an audi­ence. Self-imposed exile became an impor­tant step towards reclaim­ing the sense of con­trol I’d lost. My sto­ry isn’t fin­ished, and per­haps enough time away has giv­en me the dis­tance I need to be com­fort­able shar­ing myself again.

  1. The fact that she’s usu­al­ly on the same intel­lec­tu­al lev­el (or high­er) is also an impor­tant fac­tor. [↩]
  2. With a few notable excep­tions, I’m sure. [↩]

no man an island

Loneliness, or the fear of aban­don­ment when­ev­er I was dat­ing some­one, have been reoc­cur­ring themes since my child­hood.

I’ve nev­er regret­ted the deci­sion to cut out my par­ents for the sake of my men­tal health, but that still means I lost the only peo­ple who had a respon­si­bil­i­ty to help and accept me (as ter­ri­ble as they were at liv­ing up to that). It was a nec­es­sary but trau­mat­ic choice. Then I had a falling out with my ex-bestie, which came about after I real­ized he was­n’t the type of per­son I need­ed or want­ed in my life, and fur­ther robbed me of sta­bil­i­ty. ____ became my best friend after that (even though I was extreme­ly reluc­tant to label her as such after my expe­ri­ences), until I final­ly stood up for myself and she decid­ed she did­n’t want to be held account­able for her actions. Heather and I com­pared notes after­wards to dis­cov­er she was avoid­ing me every time I was in a cri­sis1. I’ve had a life­time of sig­nif­i­cant rela­tion­ships with emo­tion­al­ly igno­rant peo­ple who would nev­er apol­o­gize or admit that they’ve ever hurt me.

Then there’s Pat, who acknowl­edged he was a being a poor friend for not stay­ing in con­tact the last time I spoke with him. Maybe it was the fact that I was cry­ing that pres­sured him into promis­ing to call me more often. That was about sev­en years ago, and I haven’t heard from him since. I’m still mourn­ing my rela­tion­ship with Shawn for the same rea­son; a per­son who lit­er­al­ly saved my life who no longer has time for me in his. Relationships with pos­i­tive peo­ple whom I loved and looked up to, that with­ered when I stopped ini­ti­at­ing con­tact, leav­ing me with more ques­tions than answers. Relationships where I’ve done noth­ing wrong and still suf­fer a loss. Part of me can’t help but feel con­fused, and scared that any­one in my life may dis­ap­pear sim­ply cause they’ve lost inter­est.

Surviving the fall­out of each expe­ri­ence meant I came out with real­ly messed up expec­ta­tions when­ev­er it comes to oth­er peo­ple. Even now, it’s hard for me to feel safe, no mat­ter how close I am to some­one.

My first tru­ly secure rela­tion­ship — one where I could express dif­fi­cult thoughts and feel­ings with­out being blamed or aban­doned or inval­i­dat­ed — start­ed in my mid-30s with Heather2. When my depres­sion and col­i­tis kept me iso­lat­ed the last few years, I was par­tic­u­lar­ly wor­ried about being over­ly depen­dent on her. At the slight­est hint of trou­ble, it felt like my world was com­ing down because she was my world3. When I turned to oth­er peo­ple for help dur­ing my lost week­end, I soon real­ized I have a won­der­ful net­work of friends and fam­i­ly.

Continue read­ing “no man an island”…

  1. During a par­tic­u­lar­ly bad day a few years back, Heather asked her to send me a text in sup­port. She replied, “Jeff and I don’t text”. Not only was that com­plete­ly untrue, it was a real­ly shit­ty excuse for her to do noth­ing. [↩]
  2. I’ve since learned a great deal about the qual­i­ties that make a rela­tion­ship healthy and suc­cess­ful. Consequently, my stan­dards have risen. [↩]
  3. Part of my ven­ture into polyamor­ism is because I want to expand my sup­port net­work. I’m inter­est­ed in hav­ing more peo­ple care about me, per­haps cause I’m eter­nal­ly try­ing to fill the hole left by my par­ents. [↩]