Posts tagged with "Aaron"

I want to know do I stay or do I go

So.

Filmed a great wed­ding yes­ter­day, one that left me tired and sore and much deserv­ing of a break. It’s a hazy Sunday morn­ing, and anoth­er day that it’ll feel like it’s above 40°C with the humid­i­ty. Working near­ly 13 hours and turn­ing into a lit­tle pud­dle of Asian man means I’m con­scious­ly avoid­ing the out­doors today. I’ll be con­tent to sip my cof­fee and peer out the win­dow at the gen­tly sun­lit trees.

cat and drink on a hot day

Majel helps us taste-test cock­tails for the recep­tion.

Even though it’s get­ting ever clos­er to her wed­ding, and Lisa has an increas­ing num­ber of things to get done, we’ve been able to see each oth­er more late­ly. I’ve real­ized that it’s not good enough to have her meet my needs. I have to fill a cer­tain role in her life too. That’s what brings mean­ing to the rela­tion­ship, cause it means she appre­ci­ates me the way I want to be appre­ci­at­ed. So often, it feels like that’s all I’ve ever want­ed.

I’m glad to have devel­oped a rit­u­al get-togeth­er with Aaron too. When we don’t see each oth­er one week, it feels like a year the next time we catch up. Tonight I’m head­ing over to his house for the start of bach­e­lor week, some­thing we’ve been excit­ed­ly plan­ning for a while now. It’s the first time he’s had the house to him­self since the kids were born, so I’ll be stay­ing there for a few days of games, movies, bar­be­cue, and gen­er­al guy stuff, com­ing back home to feed the kit­ties every now and then. We’re doing a six per­son Magic tour­ney tomor­row, my first in the Constructed for­mat, and every­one’s mak­ing new decks for the chance to open some M13 boost­ers. I think my deck con­cept is BRILLIANT and I can’t wait to try it out.

Chet Atkins has also been keep­ing me com­pa­ny late­ly. I’m so glad to have found his instruc­tion­al DVD, where he talks with his old man charm about what he likes in each song and how to play them, phrase by phrase. I grew my thumb­nail out nice and long for near­ly two months, cut it off for prac­ti­cal­i­ty’s sake dur­ing wed­ding sea­son, then imme­di­ate­ly regret­ted the deci­sion. The elec­tric strings I’ve been using have a real­ly flat, dull tone in the low­er reg­is­ter, and since the bass line is so impor­tant in Chet’s arrange­ments, it’s like an entire part is miss­ing from any song I try to learn. I’m going to try learn­ing with a thumb pick, which is some­thing I’ve been avoid­ing for a while now cause I hate the loss of sen­si­tiv­i­ty (like a con­dom on your thumb), but hope­ful­ly the com­pro­mise is worth it.

I have things to orga­nize, chores to do, errands to run, and a house to clean before I leave. For now, I’ll enjoy the rest of the morn­ing, wast­ing time.

happy child

The sum­mer start­ed unevent­ful­ly, with a mix of rainy weath­er and cold nights. I long for after­noons in the bright sun, Lou Reed dur­ing his Velvet Underground years croon­ing to me over small speak­ers, with noth­ing bet­ter to do than wip­ing the con­den­sa­tion off a cold drink. It’s a life that does­n’t seem far away, and yet a life I nev­er imag­ine mak­ing for myself. I always think it’ll just hap­pen some day, that things will fall into place if I can take care of every­thing else.

Friday Night Magic

It’s okay to be OCD about how your cards are orga­nized as long as every­one else is.

Aaron has me over for din­ner every week with Karen and the two kids. It’s a rit­u­al he has yet to break, even though he told me he did­n’t want it to be a cal­en­dar event when I asked him if we could do some­thing on a reg­u­lar basis1. Every Wednesday he leaves work ear­ly to let me in the house, and makes up the time by work­ing longer hours on oth­er days, a sac­ri­fice that means more to me than he’ll ever under­stand, and some­thing I nev­er had to ask him to do. It’s nice to be able to look for­ward to reg­u­lar plans, and some­thing I share only with him that makes me feel like I belong.

About as often are Magic nights with Trolley and Steph, and these invari­ably include some­thing deli­cious for din­ner, when Steph takes the culi­nary arts to a whole new lev­el. They take care of me with food and con­ver­sa­tion and boost­er packs that they nev­er let me pay for. I’m sure I owe a great deal of my san­i­ty to them, when Magic was the only thing that took my mind off the fact that every­thing fell apart.

pretty wolf

Nobody fucks Pretty Wolf.

In between are things less fre­quent, but no less impor­tant. Musical projects with Jesse or Seth that give me the kind of goals and pur­pose I’ve been look­ing for. Sessions with Lisa, when we get to share the things we don’t share with any­one else. Hangouts with Tiana to debrief on our ever-chang­ing lives, and to give each oth­er advice or a pair of ears. Dinners with Heather G when I need my dose of opti­mism and adven­tur­ism. Not to men­tion the peo­ple who send me mes­sages of check up on how I’m doing when they can’t be here for me phys­i­cal­ly.

big dog and two girls

HOW ARE YOU SO BIG

It feels strange to be busy again. To be pro­duc­tive, and social, and to need days off when I’m not even employed.

Not that it’s been an attempt to stay occu­pied; more like mak­ing sure my needs are being met. That I have ful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships that pro­vide me with what I need, involv­ing peo­ple who make me feel hope­ful and worth­while and con­nect­ed and nur­tured and pro­tect­ed and sat­is­fied and accept­ed and under­stood and val­i­dat­ed and loved and con­fi­dent and safe and in con­trol.

  1. Only because it’s some­thing he want­ed to keep casu­al, where nei­ther per­son felt any pres­sure. [↩]

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. [↩]

Maple syrup festival

There was a maple syrup fes­ti­val in Perth. A bit of serendip­i­ty too, because I had just run out of my last cache of real maple syrup, stored in a bot­tle of Crown Royal my mom gave me.

Perth is a great for a get­ting to vis­it a small town with­out hav­ing to dri­ve too far. We missed the pan­cake break­fast in the morn­ing, but made up for it by hav­ing maple sausages.

maple-syrup-bottles

I bought me a bot­tle of amber maple syrup. Apparently, it’s thick­er and rich­er than the reg­u­lar maple syrup.

Continue read­ing “Maple syrup fes­ti­val”…

Super Bowl Sunday

Thumbnail: Aaron pumps gas

We cov­er a lot of ground on the dri­ve, stuff I would­n’t admit to just any­one. It’s good to have a set amount of time for some one on one. We see each oth­er at par­ties, but it’s nev­er time by our­selves.

Thumbnail: Rob's lair

We get there a few hours ear­ly because it isn’t so much about the game as hang­ing out with the two friends I don’t see enough. There’s a cool­er full of snow and beer, and the food is com­ing in pro­tein; pigs-in-blan­kets, ground beef nachos, chick­en fin­gers, crab dip, meat balls.

Thumbnail: Cradle

For a night, I’m with guys who punch arms, exchange ver­bal jabs, and laugh at blue col­lar jokes. Two lit­tle girls run around, and no one ever lets that change them. Now they’re fathers, but they’ll always be real men.