Wingman

A good wing­man says “no prob­lem bro” when you ask him to go with you, and takes it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to hang out.

He lis­tens and com­mis­er­ates and backs you up on your feel­ings when you’re catch­ing him up.

He even pays for din­ner when he’s the one doing you a favour.

He keeps a look­out in the sea of peo­ple so he can be aware of the sit­u­a­tion and warn you.

He stands fac­ing the door so you can have your back to it when talk­ing to him, and won’t be caught off guard.

He teas­es you about the cute ones, just like the good old days, when you went drink­ing in places too loud to talk.

He leads when you’re too ner­vous or self-con­scious to do any­thing, and he fol­lows with­out ques­tion when you take action.

He has a great time, and thanks you for the night.

University of Toronto Photographic Art Show

University of Toronto Dentistry art show

If you’re in Toronto, you can check out one of my prints at the University of Toronto Photographic Art Show. Rita Bauer, to whom I owe so much in sup­port, asked me if she could sub­mit the print she bought from me. Also fea­tur­ing the work of some of the amaz­ing peo­ple I met the last time I was down there, such as Jeff Comber, who does awe­some work with skate­board­ers, and Kate Tarini, whose work with panora­mas won her best in show at Maximum Exposure last year.

Swine Flu Movie Reviews

Being sick is one of the most dif­fi­cult things for me. It’s a psy­cho­log­i­cal mind game. Not only am I unable to be pro­duc­tive1, which is some­thing that nor­mal­ly keeps me sane, it’s the only sit­u­a­tion in which I feel like I can’t take care of myself. All I’m left with is this mis­ery, this suf­fer­ing that men­tal­ly wears me down. On a long enough time line (though I’m talk­ing months to years), I lose the will to live.

I start­ed get­ting some symp­toms since Tuesday after­noon, when I was feel­ing faint at work. When I woke up the next day, the symp­toms had got­ten worse. I spat into the sink, and cheered the fact that my phlegm was­n’t dark green, which is the case when I have strep throat (some­thing that seems to hap­pen annu­al­ly to me). I should say that I only sus­pect swine flu, since I did­n’t have a blood test con­firm­ing it, but the per­son who gave it to me told me she had it, so I’m going on her word, and my symp­toms match up with how swine flu is dif­fer­ent from sea­son­al flu.

For me, it’s been:

  • run­ny nose with extreme­ly watery mucous
  • stuffed nose
  • loss of appetite
  • mild­ly sore throat
  • dry cough
  • headaches
  • very slight fever
  • hot flash­es and sweat­ing

This flu, though drawn out, has actu­al­ly been eas­i­er than strep, which is so painful for me that I get fair­ly severe headaches. I went through two entire box­es of tis­sues, and I’m sure I would have gone through more, I had not spent almost the entire time like this:

Nose tissues

On the upside, it was an excuse to drink Neo Citran every night, which I also call Yummy Sleep.

In the five days since I real­ized that I have the flu, I did­n’t leave my house, aside from going across the street to buy gro­ceries. Not a sin­gle one of my friends called me (although some of them prob­a­bly did­n’t know I was sick), which was a lit­tle dis­heart­en­ing, but I did­n’t let it get to me. Jen offered to pick up gro­ceries for me, but I did­n’t take her up on it because the offer was enough of a morale boost.

This time, I sur­vived, I did it by myself, and I’m stronger for it.

To keep myself sane, I watched a record num­ber of movies. Usually, it’s hard for me to watch movies, because I feel guilty for not being pro­duc­tive, but this time I embraced my sick­ness. I may watch one every two weeks when I’m healthy, but this time it was nine in five days (ten if I had­n’t passed out in the mid­dle of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice). Here are some quick reviews. Warning: SPOILERS.

Continue read­ing “Swine Flu Movie Reviews”…

  1. I have the moti­va­tion, but it isn’t enough when my head feels like it’s explod­ing from the inside. [↩]

What I Mean To Say

Usually, when peo­ple ask me why it was so spe­cial, I say “When it worked, it worked real­ly well”.

What I real­ly mean to say is,

“It was the way her kiss­es would trav­el down my spine. The way she wore her hair dif­fer­ent­ly every time I saw her. The way her cheeks would round so endear­ing­ly when she tru­ly laughed. The way she could look beau­ti­ful wear­ing dress­es, or jeans, or my old paja­mas. The way the tan­ta­liz­ing gold­en down trav­eled along her low­er back. The way her body felt against mine when I pulled her close.

It was because she brought me green tea bub­ble bath when I was home sick for three days with strep throat. Cause she loved try­ing new things, like taro dumplings, and ha gow and sui mai and tofu flower, and bub­ble tea. Cause she would buy me ben­gal spice tea, and hand creams, and soaps, and flow­ers for no rea­son in par­tic­u­lar.

It was because she liked tak­ing pho­tos of me too. Cause she would remem­ber the things I want­ed when men­tion­ing them in pass­ing so she could look them up and buy them for me lat­er. Cause she tru­ly appre­ci­at­ed the gifts that I gave her. Cause she spent so long prepar­ing for my birth­day last year, even though she knows I don’t cel­e­brate it. Cause she helped me seek ther­a­py for my anx­i­ety issues. Cause she came with me to con­certs when I did­n’t want to go alone. Cause she loved The Mars Volta and Shane Watt as much as I do.

It was the way she could cre­ate so many beau­ti­ful things with her hands, using paint or chalk or ton­er or lead or met­al or choco­late. The way she sup­port­ed me and my pho­tog­ra­phy. The way we would take turns choos­ing movies and watched them togeth­er, even though our tastes were so dif­fer­ent. The way she got along with my friends and loved my cat.

It was the way I would fall in love with her over and over again every day.

In her, I had found the per­son I was look­ing for my whole life, and she held me cap­tive every moment we were togeth­er.”

But I nev­er do.

Dinner With The Timmites

Thumbnail: Philly melt
Thumbnail: Quesadilla
Thumbnail: Ham tortellini
Thumbnail: Veggie burger
Thumbnail: Zoom H2

Tim was in town for a pre­sen­ta­tion this week­end, so a few of us went to din­ner at a restau­rant close to where he used to live. It turns out this place used to be called Drumlin’s Pub, which I knew from sec­ond year of uni­ver­si­ty, ohhh…seven years ago? I dis­tinct­ly remem­ber being in there once, doing shots at the bar1 while sit­ting next to an old­er guy who was over $30k in debt to OSAP, telling me to go after the big­ger girls cause they do way more “stuff”. On our drink­ing tours of the city back then, we would always try to find a place that served good, cheap wings, and Strongbow. If I remem­ber cor­rect­ly, Drumlin’s had hearty hon­ey gar­lic, but no cider.

Now that it’s under new man­age­ment, it has a real­ly gener­ic name — like Sandy Hill Bar And Grill — though it makes up for this fact with much bet­ter pub fare. Such social oppor­tu­ni­ties are great for test­ing out the 360° sur­round capa­bil­i­ties of the Zoom H2 sound recorder I recent­ly pur­chased as an invest­ment towards bet­ter sound pro­duc­tion in my videos.

In his defence, Tim was sur­prised to dis­cov­er that Jess has a new boyfriend, and was being (jok­ing­ly) self-dep­re­cat­ing about his sex life. Next at the table was Reagan2, who was asked about hers. Jess picked up the mic and point­ed it at me, per­haps to shift the atten­tion away from Reagan and shield her from embar­rass­ment. Of course, it all plays out much nicer when you have a record­ing of it.

  1. Back then I drank with Iain, so it would have been tequi­la. [↩]
  2. Note to self: pro­nounced “Ray-gun” [↩]