Posts in category "Random"

Aguado Dionisio — Study in A Minor (arranged for ukulele)

Got my new tenor ukulele and it’s an absolute­ly gor­geous instru­ment, although I’m sure that’s relat­ed to the cost1. After a few weeks of try­ing out the Aquila’s they came with, I put on some Worth brown strings with the low‑G.

Study in A Minor is a great piece to learn because it’s rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple (so I don’t get dis­cour­aged too eas­i­ly), but there are three tricky parts to focus on improv­ing. They’re also each dif­fi­cult in their own way, grad­u­al­ly work­ing the dex­ter­i­ty or flex­i­bil­i­ty in a cer­tain fin­ger or two.

I want­ed to film this as a record of the way the ukulele sounds now; it’s a sol­id lace­wood spruce body, so the tone will devel­op over time as the wood matures. Also, so I can have a quick ref­er­ence of what it sounds like with longer nails on the pick­ing hand (which were prompt­ly cut after, because they were dri­ving me nuts). It’s rel­a­tive­ly clear sound, where­as with­out nails it’s sort of “wet”.

I first learned this on a sopra­no ukulele, and I had to retrain my fin­gers to stretch on the tenor. It was a BIG dif­fer­ence, and I did­n’t think my fin­gers would stretch far enough at first.

It feels amaz­ing to prac­tice some­thing for weeks, and to final­ly have it click one day. Then you nev­er want to stop play­ing cause you’re afraid you may lose it the next day.

  1. Jesse says I paid “real instru­ment” price for it. [↩]

My cousin Chris

I’ve only shared about two con­ver­sa­tions in my life with Chris — the last of which was about sev­en years ago — owing to the fact that we live on oppo­site coasts of the coun­try. But Darren and I rec­og­nized him as one of us: some­one who thinks for him­self and does­n’t buy into the whole Chinese cul­ture unques­tion­ing­ly. This is in con­trast to many of our oth­er cousins, who seem to love their par­ents sim­ply because they were birthed by them, not nec­es­sar­i­ly because their par­ents are good peo­ple.

Chris hap­pened to be pass­ing by for a wed­ding, so I host­ed him for two days. It was inter­est­ing to meet him at this point in our lives. I won­der if I’m actu­al­ly more sim­i­lar to Chris than I am to Darren, main­ly because of how our cre­ativ­i­ty defines us. It was so easy for me to relate and talk to him. And as with Darren, I actu­al­ly felt like Chris was fam­i­ly, clos­er to a broth­er than a cousin, which is all too rare among my blood.

As an indus­tri­al design­er he does amaz­ing draw­ings, full of vibrant colours that pop-off the page. I asked him to draw some­thing on my dry erase board because draw­ing is a cre­ative abil­i­ty not in my pos­ses­sion, and I find the process fas­ci­nat­ing. It was a logis­ti­cal chal­lenge because he would smear his exist­ing work every time he rest­ed his hand on the board for sta­bil­i­ty.

He’s my exact oppo­site when it comes to health. He’s a veg­an, while I’d find it impos­si­ble to give up meat, let alone but­ter and ice cream. He just lit­er­al­ly biked 100km a day across Canada, while my lifestyle could be con­sid­ered seden­tary at best, with only Tai Chi and some mild cal­is­then­ics in my exer­cise rou­tine. And yet we’re the same weight and shape. It’s sort of eerie to see him draw­ing in this video; aside from a short­er hair­cut, it’s almost like I’m watch­ing myself.

The time he spent here passed quick­ly, as I intro­duced him to the ukulele. Aside from catch­ing up and learn­ing about each oth­er, most of the two days were spent exper­i­ment­ing and play­ing togeth­er. Eventually, we went to a music store and bought him his own Mahalo ukulele, which filled my heart with glee. Darren and Jeff are com­ing up for a vis­it next week, and hope­ful­ly Chris will be able to hitch a ride with them for our ukulele band before we all head back to Toronto for Crystal’s wed­ding.

nothing gold can stay

The tears and the smears on my glass­es which I look through to type this are telling me I’m still not over her. Or per­haps, the idea of her, because she had always held back a part of her­self from being mine com­plete­ly.

This is what hap­pens when a true friend stabs you in the front. I guess I’ve been avoid­ing these thoughts for a while now, and con­front­ed with them in con­ver­sa­tion, the real­i­ty has nev­er been more clear.

I’m still a bro­ken man.

Even with the mixed sig­nals, the incon­sis­ten­cy, and the pain, it was still the most sig­nif­i­cant rela­tion­ship I’ve ever had, and that’s what makes it so hard to let go. My oth­er rela­tion­ships may have been free of all the dra­ma, but they also lacked the depth, inten­si­ty, and inti­ma­cy.

There’s noth­ing I would have changed but the end, which dragged on for a year, one suture ripped out after anoth­er. It was far from a clean break, and any­thing but res­o­lu­tion.

I know I was­n’t the only per­son to go through the pain of sep­a­ra­tion, but the break was­n’t sup­posed to last for­ev­er. I was will­ing to step away so I could heal and be strong enough to be friends in time, to be there for her, to be ready to accept the next guy. And most impor­tant­ly, I was will­ing to come back.

She was sup­posed to be strong enough to let me go until I was ready.

Letter

I believed her.

Why could­n’t it have end­ed that night, instead of the mind­fuck that con­tin­ued for months after? Why could­n’t the last thing for her to leave me be the let­ter she wrote on the sta­tion­ary I gave her? Why could­n’t she have kept the promise she made to do what­ev­er it took to keep me in her life, and stayed away?

We haven’t seen each oth­er in over half a year. It’s been even longer since we had an actu­al con­ver­sa­tion. It’s time for me to wake the fuck up. It’s time for me to deal with my emo­tions and the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. It’s time for me to move on instead of hold­ing on. It’s time for me to under­stand that I’ll nev­er be what she needs, and she’ll nev­er accept me as I am.

It’s time for me to real­ize that it’s over.

29 9/12: The Rocker

Music has always been a big part of my life, so it’s strange to con­sid­er the fact that I only seri­ous­ly took up an instru­ment the year I’m turn­ing 30, which I gen­er­al­ly con­sid­er late to be start­ing any­thing new.

I used to play piano and flute, but that was nev­er real­ly my choice. For the for­mer, it was more of my mom want­i­ng me to be a good Chinese boy, and me not want­i­ng to let her down. When it came to the lat­ter, my school had a strong empha­sis on arts, and either visu­al arts or music were manda­to­ry. I chose music1, and played the flute; far from ide­al for a teenag­er going through puber­ty and an iden­ti­ty cri­sis.

I bought my first ukulele a few months ago, and I don’t think I’ve stopped play­ing since.

Self portrait at 29 9/12

Jammin’ in my jam­mies. With what may pos­si­bly be an erec­tion.

Photo by Jess.

So much of my life has been filled by those four lit­tle strings. It’s an entire­ly new medi­um I’m still explor­ing, a mus­cle I’d yet to flex, a way of express­ing myself that’s so unlike any of my oth­er out­lets.

I get pains in my fin­gers and wrists from play­ing too much, so I struc­ture my life around the breaks; doing laun­dry, writ­ing, clean­ing my room, sort­ing my paper­work until the tin­gling or pinch­ing goes away. The pads of my fin­gers are dead. I used to fall asleep think­ing of her — now I work out scale pat­terns and chords across the fret­board in my head until I pass out. I even decid­ed to make the ulti­mate com­mit­ment and grow out the nails on my strum­ming hand because the longer they get, the more pleased I am with the sound (and I find both long nails and asym­me­try absolute­ly dis­gust­ing).

It’s come to the point where I’d rather play ukulele than play games, or go out, or talk to peo­ple. I love play­ing so much that I enjoy it even though I’m still no good at it.

I turn 30 in three months, and music is my hot hot bath, my dead end, and my girl­friend.

The Turning 30 Series

  1. Ironic that I’m so much more of a visu­al artist now. [↩]

punch-drunk

My lack of writ­ing about her late­ly has­n’t been an avoid­ance of the sub­ject, or an attempt to feign some kind of detach­ment. It’s because my thoughts about her nev­er ful­ly form any­more. Or they come in lit­tle bits and pieces, lin­ger­ing mem­o­ries in an off-guard moment.

The care­ful steps I took to avoid the loose tile on the path to her house, so as not to wake any­one when leav­ing let­ters in her mail­box. Her sac­cha­rine voice when she’d ask what I was think­ing, and the first time I could­n’t lie (I’m think­ing about how in love with you I am). A tear we shared, as it rolled from my eye to hers. I’ll even catch that uncon­trolled gig­gle of hers in the melody of a song that drifts in the air. So many details found in the sub­lim­i­ty of our time togeth­er that I told myself nev­er to for­get.

Maybe that’s why it’s still hard not to think about her. Nothing was ever ordi­nary when she was involved. I don’t talk to my friends about it any­more; there’s noth­ing left to say. Only mem­o­ries that fol­low me like a shad­ow. I won­der if they avoid bring­ing up the sub­ject with me any­way.

Sometimes, I still sec­ond-guess myself. Could I have saved us in some way? Would things be any dif­fer­ent if I had let her heal, or shared more of myself, or giv­en her more time, or been a stronger per­son? If only vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty or infat­u­a­tion or hope­less roman­ti­cism was con­sid­ered charm­ing. If only love or desire was enough to win some­one over.

Maybe I’m just cling­ing to the fact that I believe she tru­ly loved me back. It was one of the only things in this world I knew was real, and it made my heart swell every time she was next to me. The world made sense, if only for a moment now lost to the past. Or maybe I’m scared I’ll nev­er feel this way about some­one again because she was every­thing I ever want­ed, even flawed in all the right ways.

I’ve been ruined, and I don’t mind. Not any­more, at least.

I’d rather be alone than with any­one else. I can’t tell if it’s because I’m stub­born­ly try­ing to hon­our what we had, or a sub­con­scious part of me is wait­ing for her to come back because my heart can’t give up on some­one who made me feel so much. After all, she became my life, and to give up on her would be to give up on myself.

I know I’m not the only one who’s ever gone through this. Fate has proven fore­sight to be in vain for many a mice and men. Some peo­ple lose their spous­es — the per­son they expect to be with for the rest of their lives — and pick them­selves up. There’s no rea­son I can’t do the same.

But I’ve already picked myself up, and I’m hap­py. It does­n’t mat­ter that she’s not with me now, or that I haven’t stopped lov­ing her, or that she prob­a­bly does­n’t even think of me any­more. The expe­ri­ences have left me sat­is­fied and ful­filled. Our rela­tion­ship may have last­ed only a few sea­sons, but in that time I loved and was loved enough to be con­tent with what I had for the rest of my life.