Posts in category "Random"

Hugging Etiquette

She hugged me yes­ter­day. I thought I was over her, but maybe I’m still smit­ten. Physical con­tact does fun­ny things to the mind.

I don’t under­stand why girls are so into hug­ging. Often, I’ll go for a hand­shake, and as if it does­n’t take, they’ll lean in to hug after­ward. A girl once asked if she could hug me after I explained to her my pro­ce­dure for check­ing a cat before adop­tion. Figure that one out.

The fun­ny thing is that most girls aren’t very good hug­gers. They give limp hugs — more of a press­ing of the arms to the body — and it bugs the crap out of me. It’s like get­ting a soft hand­shake, also referred to as the “limp noo­dle”.

Bronwen’s an excep­tion. I always give and get a bear hug from her when I see her and when she leaves. Sometimes we fight for arm posi­tion­ing, because we both pre­fer to have the arms low­er than the oth­er. I like to have my arms around a girls’ waist, where­as she likes to have her arms sur­round­ed, so she feels pro­tect­ed.

The two Louise’s are/were also good at hug­ging. Nice and firm, with­out being too clingy. Maybe it’s a Louise thing.

It just makes me won­der; if girls are so into hug­ging, why aren’t they bet­ter at it?

The Case For Divine Serendipity

I sup­pose I should­n’t be sur­prised to find out you’ll be in town the day after I write about you.

The way the young man I just met is tak­ing the same bus home with me. The way the friend who’s been lost for­ev­er sud­den­ly shows up, pack­ing your bags in the check­out line.

But I know it’s not a sign. It’s not some cos­mic path, just the way things are work­ing out. At least, I think so. My life has been filled with such occur­rences, and I’ll be damned if it all does­n’t start to mean some­thing.

See you tomor­row.

The Weeping Sky

Thumbnail: Hurdman station on a rainy day

Thumbnail: Walkley station on a rainy day

It has­n’t stopped pour­ing since I woke up. I’m trav­el­ing through the city in my favourite hood­ie. Thinking about you and your del­i­cate wrists. The pho­tos I took of you smil­ing, always look­ing away. Wondering what it must be like in your world. Wondering if we’ll ever meet again. Wondering what you meant when you told me it’s hard to be alone when you’re told you’re grow­ing old.

I write this so I won’t have to write about you again.

Perhaps in a sim­pler world things would have worked out dif­fer­ent­ly, and you would have giv­en me a sec­ond thought.

But I have no tears in me.

The sky weeps instead.

Broken Snail

I was on my way to work one day, walk­ing down a hill, when I noticed that there was a rather large snail on the ground. He was about an inch and a half long, his shell a delight­ful con­trast of pink and pas­tel hues to dark brown band­ing. I want­ed to take a pic­ture, but I did­n’t have some­thing to car­ry him to work (where I have an infin­i­ty board and white box), so I decid­ed I’d just grab my cam­era on break and bring him there.

Of course, my break was in a cou­ple hours, and I was pray­ing that he’d still be there when I went out­side. I grabbed the cam­era and tri­pod and ran up the hill, look­ing for a small shell cast­ing a shad­ow on the con­crete.

Thumbnail: A crushed, broken snail and his shell

I found him crushed, splayed out in strands of mucus, most like­ly stepped on by some care­less per­son. Snails can’t live with­out their shells, as the cal­ci­um car­bon­ate struc­tures hold their inter­nal organs. I took a few pic­tures of the trag­ic scene any­way.

When I got home that night, I hap­pened to look at the snaps in quick suc­ces­sion and noticed that parts of him were still mov­ing.

He was still alive.

I took a few frames and over­layed them to make this Flash ani­ma­tion, where you can see his foot wrig­gling, as well as some indis­tin­guish­able entrails that remind me of liv­er. It’s so sad to think that he was left out to die a slow death with his innards exposed.

I would have named him Shelly.

Moments of Unexpected Kindness

Yesterday was gro­cery day.

I looked out the win­dow, and it was rain­ing. “You can’t wait for the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for­ev­er”, I told myself, so I grabbed my toque, my hood­ie, my jack­et, and stepped out­side.

The rain was­n’t heavy, but enough to soak through in a cou­ple min­utes.

On my way to the store, I thought of putting an ad in the clas­si­fieds.

WANTED: RAIN DANCER

Looking for cheer­ful mod­el to dance in rain for pho­to project.

Should be slim build. Light-brunette to blond hair, no longer than shoul­ders. Bring own clothes, short-sleeved with no logo pre­ferred.

Will offer dig­i­tal neg­a­tives for port­fo­lio as com­pen­sa­tion.

It was a short walk.

At the deli counter was the reg­u­lar bunch of hooli­gans, a group of unmo­ti­vat­ed, lack­adaisi­cal guys with whom I’ve dealt many times before.

I was about to say some­thing to get their atten­tion when anoth­er young man (whom I ini­tial­ly assumed was part of this group, with the same facial hair and the same mug), walked up to greet me.

“Barbecue chick­en?”, he asked.

“Please”.

I stood there wait­ing for less than a moment before he came around the counter with some­thing in his hand.

“Wipe your glass­es off with this shit”, he told me, and see­ing the beads of rain­wa­ter on my glass­es, hand­ed me a wad of paper tow­el. The uncouth man­ner in which he pre­sent­ed the paper tow­el made his ges­ture all the more warm.

Handing me my din­ner, he said “Take it easy, bro”, and touched his fin­gers to his fore­head in a mini salute.

The rain stopped before I stepped out­side again.

And I haven’t cleaned my glass­es, or stopped smil­ing since.